Sometimes a software uninstall might not complete fully on a Windows system, and you'll be left with an entry in Add/Remove Programs, even though the program files are no longer present. Attempting to remove the program from that list again sometimes will generate an error, and the entry will not be removed, leaving you with an annoying orphan. IntelliAdmin has a freeware program called Add/Remove Programs Cleaner (link) which removes entries from that list.

Important Note: This tool does not do anything toward actually uninstalling a program's files, shortcuts, or registry or profile data. It only removes the item in the Add/Remove Programs list, and it should only be used on a program which you know has been uninstalled, but which Windows won't remove from the list when you try via the normal means.

The Cleaner works on Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, 2008 and Vista, and may work on Windows 7; I believe it does not work on Windows 98 (seriously, you aren't still using that, are you?) It does not require an installation; it is simply a single executable file that you run.

I've had a recurring issue with a client's web server and the local installed instance of SQL Server 2005 Express, in this case, but this issue applies to all versions of 2005 and 2008. The behavior was that the service would fail to start automatically once the system was rebooted, but once I connected via the RRAS VPN and then Terminal Services for remote management, the service would start up just fine. The Windows Event Log had the following SQL Server error messages, immediately back-to-back in order (SQL Server itself has the same messages in its own logs):

- Server failed to listen on x.x.x.x <ipv4> xxxxx. Error: 0x2741. To proceed, notify your system administrator.
- TDSSNIClient initialization failed with error 0x2741, status code 0xa.
- TDSSNIClient initialization failed with error 0x2741, status code 0x1.
- Could not start the network library because of an internal error in the network library. To determine the cause, review the errors immediately preceding this one in the error log.
- SQL Server could not spawn FRunCM thread. Check the SQL Server error log and the Windows event logs for information about possible related problems.

The server was configured to listen on only certain IP addresses, on port xxxxx. 127.0.0.1 was the primary address for the local web sites to use, and x.x.x.x was the private IP address assigned to the RRAS server; this was for remote management of the SQL Server via the VPN connection. Hopefully your light bulb is going off over your head more quickly than it did mine!

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So, I can get pretty aggravated by the most simple things!

I was doing some coding in Visual Studio 2008, and suddenly found that Intellisense was not working on the StreamReader object instance I was coding. I verified that I had declared the object correctly; It was a very small and simple bit of code which read a text file line-by-line. Not only that, the code compiled and worked.

When you frequently code in VS, the Intellisense popup can become like an old friend. It pops up and disappears constantly as you type code. Even when you don't need it to know what members an object has, its constant flicker lets you know you are doing OK.

This is the code I was working with:

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I came across a somewhat obscure issue that, it seems, really should not be so obscure. I am working on an application that will be used to display rotating videos, a 'ticker' and rotating graphics in lobbies/waiting areas, on the client's hardware. I am using Windows Forms 2.0, DirectX 10 to display the videos, and a simple WinForms PictureBox control to display the graphic images. My intent was that the 1.0 version of the program would no longer use the PictureBox in order to support animated GIFs to be among the graphic items. My prior experience was that simply using a PictureBox.Image property would not properly display an animated GIF, but only show the first frame.

So, I read somewhere that with WinForms 2.0, that was no longer the case. So, I figured I'd try one out before going too far. I put an AniGif in the rotation, and it loads up. I wait the 5-seconds I know this particular GIF has until frame 2 comes up, and, lo and behold, an uncatchable exception: A generic error occurred in GDI+

Taking a peek at the stack trace from the exception, I find that there are, in fact, WinForms methods being called on my behalf at the appropriate time, trying to display the next frame of the image. But they are not working. "Generic Error" and all. How helpful...

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