Develop Reference

Updating PATH environment variable via registry setting using C# causes path to no longer be valid

I have a folder that I want to add to the PATH variable under Environment Variables (for the machine). I am appending the folder to the path via the registry setting. SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment.
Here is a snippet of the code where I read the registry setting. And I perform a registry update on the setting, so nothing revolutionary.
String keyName = #"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment\";
string existingPathFolderVariable = (string)Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(keyName).GetValue("PATH", "", RegistryValueOptions.DoNotExpandEnvironmentNames);
string keyValue = #"c:\MyPath\";
if ( !existingPathFolderVariable.Contains(keyValue) )
{
if (!existingPathFolderVariable.EndsWith(";", StringComparison.InvariantCulture))
{
existingPathFolderVariable += ';';
}
Followed by code to update registry value, standard registry functions.
}
I tried various options of updating the registry including using powershell.
$oldpath = (Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment' -Name PATH).path
$newpath = "$oldpath;c:\install\sysinternals"
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment' -Name PATH -Value $newPath
(Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment' -Name PATH).Path
Though the path is updated and the values look correct, the path is no longer valid. The commands under the System32 folder are no longer valid. If I perform a ping, I get the unknown command message. Same for ipconfig and other commands.
I read that I could use the SetEnvironmentVariable function. But I do not want the values expanded.
If I copy the line, delete the line, and add the line via the registry setting or UI, the problem is resolved.
Any suggestions on how to resolve the problem?

fatal: remote error: CAPTCHA required - Bitbucket - Powershell Script

I wants to checkout the branch and commit the code changes using powershell script. This powershell script will be called from c# code.
But some times i'm getting the following issue
fatal: remote error: CAPTCHA required Your Bitbucket account has been
locked. To unlock it and log in again you must solve a CAPTCHA. This
is typically caused by too many attempts to login with an incorrect
password. The account lock prevents your SCM client from accessing
Bitbucket and its mirrors until it is solved, even if you enter your
password correctly.
If i logout in browser and login again by entering the CAPTCHA it is working fine. But if i host my application on server and if issue occurs, Logging out and login again is not the proper fix.
Can you please suggest good approach of handling this issue.
My Powershell code for Cloning the branch:
param(
[parameter(position=0)]
[string]$checkoutDirectory,
[parameter(position=1)]
[string]$checkoutBranch
)
function CheckoutTheCode($checkoutRepoUrl, $checkoutDirectory, $checkoutBranch)
{
[hashtable]$Return = #{}
try
{
if(Test-Path -Path $checkoutDirectory )
{
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force $checkoutDirectory
}
New-Item -ItemType directory -Path $checkoutDirectory
# Cloning
git clone --single-branch -b $checkoutBranch $checkoutRepoUrl $checkoutDirectory
$Return.Branch = $checkoutBranch
$Return.Directory = $checkoutDirectory
$Return.Status = $true
$Return.Message = "Success"
}
catch
{
$Return.Message = $Error[0].Exception
$Return.Status = $false
}
Return $Return
}
My Powershell code for Commit changes:
param(
[parameter(position=0)]
[string]$checkoutDirectory,
[parameter(position=1)]
[string]$commitMessage
)
function CommitTheCode($checkoutDirectory, $commitMessage)
{
[hashtable]$Return = #{}
try
{
cd $checkoutDirectory
git add .
git commit -m $commitMessage
git push
$Return.Status = $true
$Return.Message = "Success"
}
catch
{
$Return.Message = $Error[0].Exception
$Return.Status = $false
}
Return $Return
}
CommitTheCode $checkoutDirectory $commitMessage

The following steps worked for me (without asking a Bitbucket admin to click a button)
For Windows,
go to the credential manager (you can find this by searching for it in Start menu)
remove all credentials related to your bitbucket account
try again with your script.

How to update url stored in Sharepoint add-in app file?

I created an High-Trust add-in for SharePoint 2013 with custom ribbon action and custom menu action.
For this, I have an ASP.NET MVC WebSite with the methods in the controller which match with the virtual urls put as custom action url. So, in the different elements.xml files, I filled action urls using the token 'remoteUrl', so no problem with the mapping.
When i create a package with VS2013, I write the url of my website which is on VM reachable from SP Server, and the client ID (I got from SP while registring my app). When I click on 'Finish', VS2013 generates a file '.app' which can be imported in SP online store or SP internal store.
Here is my problem, if I need to change the address of my website (which is stored in the app file, VS2013 just replaces the token 'RemoteUrl' with the url I give to it), is there any clean way to update the app file or may be if possible, directly the app stored in the SP application store (local to the server) ?
I found nothing for this problem. I saw few things about updating app with events and web services, but I didn't understood.
[EDIT] : I didn't understood that I have to change app version each time I need to update it that's why It didn't worked. Also, it seems that there is no other way to update the url in app file than modifying the AppManifest.xml in app file (which is a zip).

In one of my projects we used to do it with the following PowerShell script. It extracted the app file (it's just a ZIP) and modified multiple nodes in the manifest XML.
For packaging it uses a local copy of 7zip.
function ModifyAppPackage($appPackagePath, $applicationUrl, $clientId){
[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.IO.Compression.FileSystem");
$item = get-item $appPackagePath;
$zipFilePath = Join-Path $item.Directory.FullName $($item.BaseName + ".zip");
Copy-Item $item $zipFilePath;
$unzipDirectory = Join-Path $PSScriptRoot "\Temp";
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $unzipDirectory;
if (Test-Path -Path $unzipDirectory\*)
{
Remove-Item $unzipDirectory\* -Force -Confirm:$false -Recurse:$true;
}
[System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory($zipFilePath, $unzipDirectory);
$modifiedFile = Join-Path $unzipDirectory "modified.txt"
if (Test-Path -Path $modifiedFile)
{
$modifiedContent = Get-Content $modifiedFile
if ($modifiedContent -eq $applicationUrl)
{
Remove-Item $unzipDirectory -Confirm:$false -Recurse:$true;
Remove-Item $zipFilePath;
return;
}
Remove-Item $modifiedFile;
}
$modifiedFileContent = $applicationUrl;
$modifiedFileContent >> $modifiedFile;
$manifestFileName = "AppManifest.xml";
$manifestFilePath = Join-Path $unzipDirectory $manifestFileName;
$manifestXml = [xml](get-content $manifestFilePath);
$nameSpaceManager = New-Object System.Xml.XmlNamespaceManager($manifestXml.NameTable);
$nameSpaceManager.AddNamespace("ns", $manifestXml.DocumentElement.NamespaceURI);
$startPageElement = $manifestXml.SelectSingleNode("/ns:App/ns:Properties/ns:StartPage", $nameSpaceManager);
$StartPage = $applicationUrl + "?{StandardTokens}"
$startPageElement.'#text' = $StartPage
$InstalledEventEndpointElement = $manifestXml.SelectSingleNode("/ns:App/ns:Properties/ns:InstalledEventEndpoint", $nameSpaceManager);
$InstalledEventEndpoint = $applicationUrl + "/Services/AppEventReceiver.svc"
$InstalledEventEndpointElement.'#text' = $InstalledEventEndpoint
$clientIdElement = $manifestXml.SelectSingleNode("/ns:App/ns:AppPrincipal/ns:RemoteWebApplication", $nameSpaceManager);
$clientIdElement.ClientId = $clientId;
$manifestXml.Save($manifestFilePath);
if (Test-Path -Path $zipFilePath)
{
Remove-Item $zipFilePath;
}
$pathToZipExe = $("$PSScriptRoot\7za.exe");
[Array]$arguments = "a", "-tzip", "$zipFilePath", "$unzipDirectory\*.*", "-r";
& $pathToZipExe $arguments;
# Cleanup
Remove-Item $unzipDirectory -Confirm:$false -Recurse:$true;
Remove-Item $appPackagePath -Confirm:$false;
# Rename new zip to .app
Rename-Item $zipFilePath $appPackagePath -Force -Confirm:$false;
return $true;
}

I think it would be possible to store the url in one of custom list in the app. Refer the url from the list. Whenever you need to change the url it can be done from the app itself.

Azure, Increase Worker Count Programatically, Management API / Cmdlets? (without reboot) [duplicate]

Is it possible to update the value of a setting in an Azure Cloud Service with Azure Powershell?

So far there is no way to update just a single setting (the Service Management API does not allow it - it only accepts the whole service configuration). So, in order to update a single setting, you will have to update the entire configuration. And you can do this with PowerShell:
# Add the Azure Account first - this will create a login promppt
Add-AzureAccount
# when you have more then one subscription - you have explicitly select the one
# which holds your cloud service you want to update
Select-AzureSubscription "<Subscription name with spaces goes here>"
# then Update the configuration for the cloud service
Set-AzureDeployment -Config -ServiceName "<cloud_service_name_goes_here>" `
-Configuration "D:/tmp/cloud/ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg" `
-Slot "Production"
For the the `-Configuration' parameter I have provided full local path to the new config file I want to use with my cloud service.
This is verified and working solution.

As astaykov says, you can't update a single cloud config value using Powershell.
But you can read all of the settings, update the one you wish to change, save it to a temp file, and then set all the settings again, like so:
UpdateCloudConfig.ps1:
param
(
[string] $cloudService,
[string] $publishSettings,
[string] $subscription,
[string] $role,
[string] $setting,
[string] $value
)
# param checking code removed for brevity
Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile $publishSettings -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null
function SaveNewSettingInXmlFile($cloudService, [xml]$configuration, $setting, [string]$value)
{
# get the <Role name="Customer.Api"> or <Role name="Customer.NewsletterSubscription.Api"> or <Role name="Identity.Web"> element
$roleElement = $configuration.ServiceConfiguration.Role | ? { $_.name -eq $role }
if (-not($roleElement))
{
Throw "Could not find role $role in existing cloud config"
}
# get the existing AzureServiceBusQueueConfig.ConnectionString element
$settingElement = $roleElement.ConfigurationSettings.Setting | ? { $_.name -eq $setting }
if (-not($settingElement))
{
Throw "Could not find existing element in cloud config with name $setting"
}
if ($settingElement.value -eq $value)
{
Write-Host "No change detected, so will not update cloud config"
return $null
}
# update the value
$settingElement.value = $value
# write configuration out to a file
$filename = $cloudService + ".cscfg"
$configuration.Save("$pwd\$filename")
return $filename
}
Write-Host "Updating setting for $cloudService" -ForegroundColor Green
Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $subscription -ErrorAction Stop
# get the current settings from Azure
$deployment = Get-AzureDeployment $cloudService -ErrorAction Stop
# save settings with new value to a .cscfg file
$filename = SaveNewSettingInXmlFile $cloudService $deployment.Configuration $setting $value
if (-not($filename)) # there was no change to the cloud config so we can exit nicely
{
return
}
# change the settings in Azure
Set-AzureDeployment -Config -ServiceName $cloudService -Configuration "$pwd\$filename" -Slot Production
# clean up - delete .cscfg file
Remove-Item ("$pwd\$filename")
Write-Host "done"

Identify processes that have placed locks on a DLL using Powershell

Using powershell, I want to identify any process locks placed a given DLL.
Solved. See below.

function IsDLLFree()
{
# The list of DLLs to check for locks by running processes.
$DllsToCheckForLocks = "C:\mydll1.dll","C:\mydll2.dll";
# Assume true, then check all process dependencies
$result = $true;
# Iterate through each process and check module dependencies
foreach ($p in Get-Process)
{
# Iterate through each dll used in a given process
foreach ($m in Get-Process -Name $p.ProcessName -Module -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)
{
# Check if dll dependency matches any DLLs in list
foreach ($dll in $DllsToCheckForLocks)
{
# Compare the fully-qualified file paths,
# if there's a match then a lock exists.
if ( ($m.FileName.CompareTo($dll) -eq 0) )
{
$pName = $p.ProcessName.ToString()
Write-Error "$dll is locked by $pName. Stop this service to release this lock on $m1."
$result = $false;
}
}
}
}
return $result;
}

This works if you're assessing dll files loaded in the current application domain. If you pass in the path to the dll file it will return whether or not that assemblies is loaded in the current application domain. This is particularly useful even if you don't know the .dll file (still works for that), but want to know if a general area has .dll files with locks.
function Get-IsPathUsed()
{
param([string]$Path)
$isUsed = $false
[System.AppDomain]::CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies() |? {$_.Location -like "*$Path*"} |% {
$isUsed = $true;
}
$isUsed;
}