Saturday, November 24, 2012

IIS Express Quickie Command-line

This is a reminder to my future self for how to quickly start IIS Express from the command-line on 64-bit Windows 7 or 8 assuming you already have IIS Express installed using the defaults.

  1. Open admin command line.
  2. cd\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express
  3. iisexpress /path:c:\YourApplicationRootFolder /port:WhateverPortNumber

Note: You can also specify /clr:v2.0 if you hate fun.  The default is CLR 4 which works with .NET 4 and 4.5.

This was adapted from the full article on www.iis.net: http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/using-iis-express/running-iis-express-from-the-command-line

Monday, November 19, 2012

Surface: Standard Onscreen Keyboard

If you feel that the default on-screen keyboard on the Surface RT isn't sufficient, you can enable what I would say is the "pro" keyboard via the settings.

  • Drag in from the right hand side to show the charms and click Settings.
  • On the bottom of the settings window, click "Change PC Settings" to show the Windows 8-style control panel.
  • Under General... Touch Keyboard... turn on the option called "Make the standard keyboard layout available".

Now when you're displaying the onscreen keyboard, there will be a fifth option available which is a more "standard" Windows keyboard including up arrow, down arrow, and the option for F1-F12 if you hit the Fn key first.  I still haven't found a way to show Insert/Delete/Home/Page Up/Page Down other than with the physical keyboard.