Here's the details of the exception:

 System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException occurred
  Message="A null reference pointer was passed to the stub. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706F4)"
  Source="PresentationCore"
  ErrorCode=-2147023116
  StackTrace:
       at MS.Internal.HRESULT.Check(Int32 hr)
  InnerException:

Enjoy!

 This is one of those things where the answer looks simple and seems like it should have been apparent from the start.  Alas I couldn't see it in the beginning either.

 Here's the magic code:

// get a reference to the folder (this assumes path points to a valid folder)

SPFolder folder = SharePointConfiguration.Site.GetFolder(path);

 

// get a reference to the Sharepoint group collection

SPGroupCollection spc = SharePointConfiguration.Site.SiteGroups;

 

// get a reference to the group who’s permissions you want to modify for the folder above

SPGroup group = spc[groupName];

 

// create a role assignment from the group reference

SPRoleAssignment roleAssignment = new SPRoleAssignment((SPPrincipal)group);

 

// break role inheritance for folders/files because they will be having permissions separate from their parent file/folder

folder.Item.BreakRoleInheritance(true);

 

// update the role assignments for the group by adding the permissionSet “TestPermissionLevel” which is a custom

// permissionset I created manually…you can easily use any of the built-in permission sets

roleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(SharePointConfiguration.Site.RoleDefinitions["Test Permission Level"]);

 

// apply the new roleassignment to the folder.  You can do this at the listitem level if desired (i.e. this could be SPfile.Item…. instead of SPFolder.Item)

folder.Item.RoleAssignments.Add(roleAssignment);

Error 1 Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Search, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. C:\Documents and Settings\robgruen\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\WebSites\MyWebService\Web.Config

What happens is that the ASP.NET compiler is a 32bit process and tries to load 32 bit assemblies.  Since you're on a 64 bit box and the Sharepoint install NGENs it's asseblies, there are only 64 bit assemblies available.  This causes the compiler to not load the referenced assemblies (Microsoft.Sharepoint.*.dll) and causes the error shown even though the assemblies are in the GAC, bin folder, etc. 

You can fix this problem by placing 32bit versions of the referenced assemblies in the bin folder of your web application.  Unfortunately IL versions of the Sharepoint dlls do not ship with the Sharepoint SDK so you'll have to find a 32 bit install of Sharepoint where you can grab the dlls from.

 What I thought was going to be an easy thing was definitely not.  Putting the video card in and installing the drivers went fine but when I went to the display properties settings dialog I got a very bogus error message:

The currently selected graphics display driver cannot be used. It was written for a previous version of Windows NT, and is no longer compatible with the current version of Windows NT.

The system has been started using the default VGA driver.

Please contact your hardware manufacture to get an upgraded driver, or select one of the Microsoft provided drivers.

Well, I know this error message is bogus because the video card works by itself in the system and the drivers are WHQL certified.  When I opened up the device manager it stated "this device is working properly." So I know the error was just hiding the true cause of the problem. 

 I started playing all the tricks I know with the video card, swapping the PCI bus order, changing PCI/PCIe slots to initalize 1st, nothing worked.  What worked was any two combinations of the video cards (they are all heterogenous manufacturers & drivers), but never all three at once. 

 I finally came across the holy grail of my problem when reading display driver documentation.  It turns out that display adapters are given a certain slice of memory to load in and if the total size of the drivers exceeds this allotment the driver won't load.  Hence why two cards always worked but the third card always failed.  You can set a registry key to change the default memory footprint and increase it such that you have enough space for the drivers to load.  I first change the value to 16MB, which should be enough for most folks having this problem, and then subsequently to 32MB before I was able to run all six displays on my machine without a hitch.

 So, if you are getting the above error message when going to the settings tab of your machine and have multiple video drivers installed and have already tried Q165318, set the following registry value (please make sure your system's backed up before you play with this registry setting):

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\SessionImageSize

 DWORD 0x10

As usual, happy scrolling!

For a while now my computer's Automatic Updates has been broken.  No new downloads have appeared, the control panel icon is missing, and the Windows Update site can't install the updated ActiveX control.  Every time I go to the site it tries to update the WU client and I keep getting this 0x800703E3 funky error code.

Windows Update Codes - My error is pretty cryptic: "The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request"

I tried once already to fix it a while back but no luck so I just lived without it.  Well, now I can't access certain resources since some security policies that I'm subject too aren't installed on my box. 

...Darn, I should have fixed the WU problem when I had the chance.  Being stuck in IT limbo isn't fun! I didn't want to waste more of my time or some support engineer's time so I resigned myself to fix my own problem.  Go me!

I whipped out my Swiss Army IT-Problem-Solver and selected the FileMon tool.  Clearly visible to me were the marks from the last problem conqured by this device, in the include filter I could see "de*.exe"

I quickly configured the tool for this operation by setting the filter to "iexplore.exe" and turned on the capture.  Then, I navigated the browser to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and waited impatiently for the ugly beast to appear.  "There!" I whispered then snickered as I switched back to filemon and stopped the capture.  I swiftly began searching for anything out of the ordinary.  I was expecting to see some ACC_DENIED or FILE NOT FOUND errors but nothing.  There appeared to be no suspicious entries until about half way up the log...at row 9087 I saw it, my first real clue:  DEVICE DATA ERROR, and another ar row 9084:  IN PAGE ERROR.

"Hmmmm..." I thought as I looked at the file name: c:\windows\system32\wuaucpl.cpl.  Immediately I was able to recall what I know and what I could infer about this file:

1. The "WU" portion of the file most likely stands for "Windows Update".  I quick check on the dll help database could verify it for sure but I skipped that.
2. The extension CPL is used for control panel icons.  These files are actually executables with just a different extension.

Given these facts I browsed to the file with windows explorer and tried to launch the exe (wuaucpl.cpl).  When I launched it I got an error:  "Failed to launch executable due to an exception" or something along those lines.  I didn't write the error message down because I was on to something and wasn't thinking clearly.  Sorry for all you Googler's, et. al. out there. 

This was my smoking gun, a bad file (or bad sector on the disk where this file got put last time I defragged).  All I had to do was replace the file with a good image of it.  If I were smart, and I'm not, I would have done a restore point when I first got this error.  That would have easily restored the file to it's original shine.  Unfortunately, again since I'm not smart, that restore point is so far gone not even a terrabyte worth of restore points could have kept track of it. Well, maybe 1 TB, but certainly not 1 GB worth!

Luckily I'm a computer nerd and had a secondary computer around where I could just copy this file.  Thankfully the donor computer was of a similar breed and the file name, timestamp, and all the other things Windows File Protection cares about was the same so I could just overwrite the existing file and be on my way.

Here I sit writing this entry as my computer happy checks for updates and downloads the...hold on a sec while I check....127.7MB of updates needed for my computer.  I'm sure there will be a second, if not third batch by the time all of the updates are applied.

So kids, what is the moral of the story?  If you're getting error number 0x800703E3 when visiting windows update, use filemon to see what file the update is failing on.

Happy updating ever after!

Here are my thoughts on the devices so far (I've had about 30 minutes total on them):

• Of the devices so far the Founder device is my favorite.  It's lightweight, has great ergonomics, and is lightning fast.
• They were all prototype devices so there is some work left to be done.
• The Asus did show some wear on the buttons (the coloroing was worn off) but it was at CeBIT in Germany so I'm sure thousands of people have touched the device.  To me that means that'll hold up well.
• The key typing glyphs are hard to get used to but I think will be quite usable once you get the hang of it.
• The Samsung had a vent for the cpu fan right under the left hand which was not very comfortable and doesn't encourage lengthy use of the device since your hand will definitley start sweating.  They should probably invert the CPU and put vents on the back of the device, or along the top edge, instead of along the side.
• The touch screen often goes forgotten as I kept wanting to use the stylus but I guess that's because I'm not used to having the luxury of a touch screen.
• I'm left handed so trying to use windows journal or one note was tough because of the touch screen...I had to keep my hand off of the display otherwise I'd freek the cursor out when the side of my hand touched the display surface.
• There are products you can use to connect the device to a larger display.

To sum it all up:  :) Bye bye laptop!

The keynote was pretty cool, Tim O'Reilly's interview with BillG went really well.  Bill had great answers and everyone was happy with his responses.  I'm sure others will blog about it in more detail than myself. 

I'm having to use one of the terminals set up here to blog since my lappy is in the hotel room. 

Since I'm registered as an "attendee" I got a bag of gifts including VS.NET 2005 standard edition, that'll be a nice gift to one of my buddies.  There's also a notebook (yes, paper for hand written notes) and various other items.

Should be a grand day tomorrow!