Brian Donahue

It always works on my machine.

Probably the most common question that the Red Gate developer tools support gets is “Does your X work with Y?”...

18 January 2012 2 min read

Brian Donahue

Event-Driven Debugging

Most application troubleshooting involves getting an error, analyzing the error message, and at worst, attaching a debugger to work out...

15 October 2011 3 min read

Brian Donahue

My application had a WindowsIdentity crisis

The project I have been working on this week to test computer environments needs to do various actions as a...

17 March 2011 2 min read

Brian Donahue

Anatomy of a serialization killer

As I had mentioned last month, I have been working on a project to create an easy-to-use managed debugger. It’s...

19 December 2010 3 min read

Brian Donahue

Updating the managed debugging API for .NET v4

In any successful investigation, the right tools play a big part in collecting evidence about the state of the “crime scene”...

24 November 2010 5 min read

Brian Donahue

Installing databases using Wix

In the promised second half of my Wix installment, I am going to demonstrate how you can install a SQL...

06 November 2008 6 min read

Brian Donahue

Arrrrgh! Wix!

This week’s time-eater, for me, was to try to create an installer package (MSI) with custom actions that install databases...

21 October 2008 5 min read

Brian Donahue

ASP .NET: when a crash is not a crash

In the mysterious viscera of Microsoft Internet Information Server, nothing is as it seems. When applications are designed to work...

24 September 2008 4 min read

Brian Donahue

Man eats crow, film at eleven

Last week I’d had a bit of a rant here about not using software for anything other than what it is...

12 August 2008 3 min read

Brian Donahue

DOH! It’s the DaftOperationHandler

Probably my least favourite question in the world, professionally anyway, is “Does your software support <choose a technology>”. Well,...

05 August 2008 3 min read

Brian Donahue

Po man’s patchworkin’

If you had come of age before Component Object Model as I have, the concept of COM registration seemed rather...

27 March 2008 6 min read

Brian Donahue

Need to loosen my bindings

Microsoft .NET’s runtime provides an execution engine for Just-In-Time compiled code, but it also has the clandestine capability to pre-compile code...

13 November 2007 4 min read

Brian Donahue

Database backup: insufficient resources for cache withdrawal

Sometimes SQL Server can pose conundrums of such complexity that even the Riddler couldn’t conceive of. In my mind’s eye, a...

30 September 2007 5 min read

Brian Donahue

How to rewind a SQL Server

I work for a company that sells software. And SOME people, because of their untrusing nature, need to be convinced...

20 September 2007 8 min read

Brian Donahue

Support’s line in the sand

Some months ago, I took my car in for a safety inspection, and the garage found a small hole on...

15 September 2007 3 min read

Brian Donahue

Learning to play the symbols

If you are ever tasked to figure out what’s happening inside an application, one of the essential bits of information...

08 September 2007 6 min read

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Brian Donahue

Brian Donahue's content

It always works on my machine.

Event-Driven Debugging

My application had a WindowsIdentity crisis

Anatomy of a serialization killer

Updating the managed debugging API for .NET v4

Installing databases using Wix

Arrrrgh! Wix!

ASP .NET: when a crash is not a crash

Man eats crow, film at eleven

DOH! It’s the DaftOperationHandler

Po man’s patchworkin’

Need to loosen my bindings

Database backup: insufficient resources for cache withdrawal

How to rewind a SQL Server

Support’s line in the sand

Learning to play the symbols