Another quick solution to a frustrating problem: I recently started getting an error, “The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process”, when compiling a solution in Visual Studio 2008 on Windows 7. I don’t recall encountering this error when running Visual Studio 2008 on Windows XP, although others have reported running into this issue on that configuration, as well.

While debugging the error, I realized that Visual Studio itself (devenv.exe) was locking a debug dll from one project and then trying (and failing) to move it into the “bin” folder of the web project in my solution. Weird.

After some searching, I found that a lot of people recommended running a pre-build step on the project that contained the file lock to rename lock file(s) before trying to move the file(s). Not only did this not seem like a clean solution to me, it also did not solve my problem.

It just so happens that the solution itself is really simple. Right-click on the reference in your web project and click on “Properties”. Change “Copy Local” to “False” and then rebuild your solution. This obviously won’t work for all cases, but it works for me.

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Just a quick note for myself (and also for those of you who might be looking for a solution to a frustrating problem): If you are developing with the Cassini web server on Windows 7 and notice *major performance problems when using Firefox to load the local site, try out this fix. It worked for me!

http://joshclose.net/?tag=cassini

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Performance Test Internet Explorer with dynaTrace AJAX Edition

December 29, 2009

As is well-documented on this site, I am a sucker for web development tools and am always on the lookout for new tools to make my job easier. You can probably understand, then, how excited I was to hear about a new AJAX performance tracing tool that makes debugging performance issues in the bane of [...]

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Improve Virtual Machine Performance in VMWare Fusion

December 29, 2009

In early 2008, while working on a time-sensitive development project, the power supply and motherboard in my four year old homemade workstation failed and I was forced to make a decision: build another machine myself or give in and buy a machine with a good support contract. I decided to go with the latter, so [...]

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Google Chrome Developer Builds Available

June 5, 2009

If you’ve been holding your breath waiting for Google to release Chrome for Mac (or Linux), you can take a breath. It has been a long time coming, but Google finally announced today that they are releasing “developer” builds for Mac and Linux. Because of its startup speed (dramatically better than any of the other [...]

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Ext Releases Ext Core

April 5, 2009

If the upcoming 3.0 release of the full ExtJS library wasn’t enough to get you excited, yesterday’s announcement of the release of a new lightweight core library, Ext Core, should be enough to get your pulse up. Ext Core looks to fill the void that exists between a full Ext application (basically a desktop class [...]

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Managing My Social Networks

April 4, 2009

I like the idea of social networking (heck, I’m building a spatially-enabled social networking app), but am still struggling with the idea of managing multiple social networks at the same time. I mean who uses only Facebook? And the complexity grows even more when you start to consider all of the other web apps that [...]

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Cappuccino Atlas

February 24, 2009

I just read on Ajaxian that the Cappuccino team announced Atlas, a new “visual layout editor and development environment”, today at the Future of Web Apps conference in Miami. I heard Atlas mentioned (not by name) by a member of the Cappuccino team, Ross Boucher while attending a Cappuccino bootcamp session at Web Directions North [...]

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Foxmarks Now for Internet Explorer and Safari

February 5, 2009

I just read on Lifehacker that Foxmarks has released versions of its bookmark synchronization utility for Internet Explorer and Safari (for Mac, not yet Windows). This is exciting news, as now I can truly consider using Safari while working on my Mac. On top of this, I can now get my bookmarks onto (and off [...]

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Planning for Internet Explorer 8

February 4, 2009

Look out web developers, a new version of Internet Explorer is about to be released into the wild. Fun fun. There’s no use complaining. You know you’re going to have to support it, so, the only thing left to do is work hard to make sure that your site works in the new browser. How [...]

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