Visual Studio’s Deployment Projects are quite limited. To get them to do more complicated setup tasks require writing custom deployment actions in C#. The problem with writing code is that it places an additional maintenance and testing burden on the developer. Often all that’s needed is to perform a few small operating system tasks. In these scenarios it just feels unjustified to revert to writing a bunch of C# setup logic.

I recently ran into such a scenario. As part of the deployment application, SQL Server 2005 Express had to be automatically unpacked. When the SQL Server Express setup utility is runned with the /x argument, it unpacks its contents, instead of installing SQL Server. The trick is how to execute this shell command with the minimum effort? The answer is to write a little Visual Basic script file (.vbs) that uses the WScript.Shell object. The emphasis is on little. I wouldn’t recommend sticking huge complicated installation logic in a script file. When you have lots of setup logic, then it’s time to write those C# custom actions, together with unit tests, and mocks. But for all those 1 liner shell commands, a script file is just the thing you need.

Visual Basic Scripts (.vbs) Are Your Friend

The VB script:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Exec(Property("CustomActionData") & "\SQLEXPR32.EXE /x:""" & Property("CustomActionData") & "\SQLEXPR2005""")
Set WshShell = Nothing

The Windows Script Host (WScript.Shell) object has two candidate methods to execute commands – Run and Exec. According to Microsoft, if you need access to command-line output, you should use the Exec method instead. In this case I did not specifically need access to shell output, but for whatever reason I was unable to get Run to work.

Each custom action has access to the CustomActionData argument. This handy little argument is set on the custom action’s properties. It allows you to pass through the directory where the application was installed, using the global variable [TARGETDIR].

WScript.Shell.Exec allows you to execute any standard command line argument in a manner similar to using the Run… dialog box from the Start menu.

What’s nice about this solution is that it allows you to package SQL Server Express with your solution in one file, and then unpack it during the installation process. The other option is to unpack SQL Server beforehand and add the individual files to your deployment solution. If you’re using Visual SourceSafe, you will run into problems with some of SQL Server’s files that have very long names, and are not DOS compatible.

Gmail labs has an interesting feature which warns you if you miss to attach an attachment when sending the mail. A similar feature can be achieved in Microsoft Outlook as well, using Visual Basic scripting. 

For those of you who wish to achieve the same in Outlook, here is the step by step process.

1.) Ensure that Macros are enabled for your Microsoft Office Outlook. Macros don’t work with Microsoft Outlook Express, therefore this setup cannot be achieved with Microsoft Outlook Express.

2.) Ensure that your security level is set to Medium. You can set the security level by clicking on Tools –> Macro –> Security. Set the desired level to Medium.

3.) Traverse through Tools –> Macro –> Visual Basic Editor ( Or press ALT + F11)

4.) Expand Project 1 by clicking on the + sign.

Project Edition in Outlook

5.) Expand Microsoft Office Outlook Objects.

6.) Double click ThisOutlookSession.

Code for Attachment Detection

7.) Copy paste the following code. 

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)

    Dim lngres As Long

    If InStr(1, Item.Body, "attach") <> 0 Then

        If Item.Attachments.Count = 0 Then

            lngres = MsgBox(" Found 'Attach' in message, but no attachment found - send anyway?", _

                            vbYesNo + vbDefaultButton2 + vbQuestion, "You asked me to warn you...")

            If lngres = vbNo Then Cancel = True

        End If

    End If

End Sub

8.) The above code looks for the term “attach” ( without quotes) in the message body. If you send mails in your local language which is other than English, replace the word “attach” to the word you would be interested in searching for. This will make the code look for that particular word.

9.) Once the code is pasted, click on Save and then Exit.

Detecting attachments in Outlook

10.) From now on, if you create any mail with Attach in the mail body and try sending it without attaching any file, you will get an alert.

Enjoy no more missing attachments in your important mails. Hope this post helps.

Also read: [How-To] Recover lost Outlook PST Password

Kingsoft Office 2007: Microsoft Office comes free

How-To: Display two time zones in Microsoft Outlook

Recovering ‘permanently’ deleted email in Microsoft Outlook 2003

Microsoft Outlook: Creating an Appointment From a Mail

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Cheers

Vaibhav

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Muchas veces al importar datos de un txt a través de DTS algunos campos no se pueden transformar directamente y por lo tanto no sirve una simple transformación Copy Column. Ante esta situación solo queda definir las tranformaciones a mano utilizando las demas disponibles (ActiveX Script, DateTime String, Lowercase String, Middle of String, etc).
En este ejemplo voy a mostrar ActiveX Script.

1) Asumiendo que ya tenes el paquete armado y solo falta definir las transformaciones te vas al tab correspondiente y elegis New.

2) De la lista elegis ActiveX Script.

3) Seteas la columna fuente y la de destino y haces clic en Properties

4) Te va a aparecer esta ventanda donde podesr escribi codigo en Visual Basic Script o JScript para aplicar las transformaciones como quieras.

En este caso quiero pasar de un archivo de texto a un tabla en la base una columna con el siguiente formato: “4.09″, osea un número decimal. El problema esta en que si hacemos un Copy Column (definiendo la columna en la tabla como un decimal(10,2) y no un varchar(4)) el paquete va a tirar error, ya que el simbolo para un decimal en SQL Server 2000 es “,” y no “.”.
Asi que para eso utilizamos la función Replace() para cambiar puntos por comas:

Function Main()
Dim datos
datos = DTSSource(“Col008″)
datos = Replace(datos, “,” , “.” , 1, 20 )
DTSDestination(“Ali_Per”) = datos
Main = DTSTransformStat_OK
End Function

Creo que no hacen falta muchos comentarios, simplemente tomos los datos fuentes en una variable, reemplazo con Replace los caracteres y luego asigno los datos a la columa de salida.
Despues seguro escribire algo sobre las demas tipos de tranformaciones… por ahora.. esto es todo…