The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail.

So I thought of work around this issue. To reproduce the issue, I tampered the exe.config file of one of my application, by removing <configuration> tag from the file. And it started throwing the exception.

The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail.

I verified the same with EventViewer, and I found a message like this, under Windows Logs > Application

Activation context generation failed for “C:\CaptureItPlus\Binaries\CaptureItPlus.exe”. Error in manifest or policy file “C:\CaptureItPlus\Binaries\CaptureItPlus.exe.Config” on line 1. Invalid Xml syntax.

The error message is pretty self explanatory. If you are not able to access the event viewer, the other option is using sxstrace.exe tool. You can enable run the sxstrace in trace mode, you can do this by following command.

sxstrace.exe Trace -logfile:C:\captureittrace.log

And execute the application. After getting exception, stop the tracing and you can parse the log file using following command.

sxstrace.exe Parse -logfile:C:\captureittrace.log -outfile:C:\captureittrace.txt

It is required because .log is a binary file. Now open the .txt file, you can see similar message,

INFO: Parsing Application Config File C:\CaptureItPlus\Binaries\CaptureItPlus.exe.Config.
ERROR: Line 1: XML Syntax error.
ERROR: Activation Context generation failed.
End Activation Context Generation.

Now open the .exe.config and add the missing , now double click on the application, this issue will be resolved.

First we need to create a class library. Set the ComVisible attribute to true in the AssemblyInfo.cs manually.

[assembly: ComVisible(true)]

Or you can do it using Properties > Application Tab and select Assembly Information, from the Assembly Information dialog, Check the Make assembly COM-Visible check box.

Make Assembly COM Visible option from Assembly Information dialog

Build the assembly. Now we need register the assembly. We can do it using RegAsm.exe. If your OS in 64 bit, then you need to use Regasm command from Framework64 folder(Normally it will be C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\ folder). For running RegAsm command it is recommended to sign the assembly. You can Sign the assembly Properties > Signing Tab.

Sign Assembly option

As RegAsm command add / update information to Windows Registry, you need to run the RegAsm command as Administrator, otherwise it will not work.

You can register the assembly using following command, like this

regasm /codebase assemblyname.dll

You can unregister the assembly using RegAsm command, like this

regasm /u assemblyname.dll

That’s it. Now you can create the object of the .net assembly in VBScript. Like this, it will add 10 and 20 using C# Add method and returns the value.

Dim calcLib
Set calcLib = CreateObject("CalcLib.Math")
Dim result
result = calcLib.Add (10 , 20)
msgbox result

And here is the C# Class, which we are invoked from VBScript.

namespace CalcLib
{
    public class Math
    {
        public int Add(int number1, int number2)
        {
            return number1 + number2;
        }
    }
}

Happy Coding

public static void CompressJpeg(string path, int quality)
{
    if (quality < 0 || quality > 100)
    {
        throw new
            ArgumentOutOfRangeException("Quality must be between 0 and 100.");
    }
    //Creating temp. file and
    string tempFile = Path.GetTempFileName();
    File.Copy(path, tempFile, true);
    using (var image = Image.FromFile(tempFile))
    {
        // Encoder parameter for image quality
        var qualityParam =
            new EncoderParameter(Encoder.Quality, quality);
        // Jpeg image codec
        var jpegCodec = ImageCodecInfo.GetImageEncoders()
            .Where(imageCodecInfo => imageCodecInfo.MimeType == "image/jpeg")
            .FirstOrDefault();
        var encoderParams = new EncoderParameters(1);
        encoderParams.Param[0] = qualityParam;
        //Save the compressed image.
        image.Save(path, jpegCodec, encoderParams);
        //Getting the file image sizes.
        var prevImageSize = new FileInfo(tempFile).Length;
        var nextImageSize = new FileInfo(path).Length;
        Console.WriteLine("Image compressed. Size saved :{0} bytes",
            prevImageSize - nextImageSize);
    }
    //Removing the temp. file.
    File.Delete(tempFile);
}

string baseAddress = "net.tcp://localhost:8080/MyService1";
Uri[] addresses = { new Uri(baseAddress) };
using (var serviceHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(Service), addresses))
{
    var nettcpbinding = new NetTcpBinding();
    nettcpbinding.PortSharingEnabled = true;
    serviceHost.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IService),
        nettcpbinding, "IService");

    serviceHost.Open();
    Console.ReadKey(true);
    serviceHost.Close();
}

Also even if set the PortSharingEnabled to true, we also require to start the Net.Tcp port sharing service from the control panel. By default it will be disabled. If the service not started, and your tried to listen two services in same port number, you may get an exception like this AddressAlreadyInUseException – There is already a listener on IP endpoint 0.0.0.0:8080. This could happen if there is another application already listening on this endpoint or if you have multiple service endpoints in your service host with the same IP endpoint but with incompatible binding configurations.

Net.Tcp port sharing service in Services console.

You can also set the property via App.Config file also.

<bindings>
    <netTcpBinding>
        <binding portSharingEnabled="true" />
    </netTcpBinding>
</bindings>

Now you are able to run two services with same port number, in this port number 8080.

Happy Programming

Here is my sample Database design and which contains few of my blog posts.

Database Structure

And here is the implementation using generic ashx handler, which helps to create RSS feeds. Following snippet will read all the values from the table and creating list of SyndicationItem using SqlDataReader.

using (SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("SELECT * FROM tblPosts", connection))
{
    SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.CloseConnection);
    while (reader.Read())
    {
        feedList.Add(new SyndicationItem(
            reader["PostTitle"].ToString(),
            reader["PostContent"].ToString(),
            new Uri(string.Format(APP_URL,
                reader["PostId"].ToString())),
            reader["PostId"].ToString(),
            DateTimeOffset.Parse(reader["PostDate"].ToString())));
    }
}

And next snippet creating a SyndicationFeed which will help to create RSS using SyndicationItems. Based on the querystring, it is generating either ATOM or RSS feed.

SyndicationFeed feeds =
    new SyndicationFeed("DOTNETTHOUGHTS",
        "A DOTNET DEVELOPER'S TECHNICAL BLOG",
        new Uri("http://dotnetthoughts.net/feed"), feedList);
feeds.Copyright =
    new TextSyndicationContent("Copyright (C) 2011 dotnetthoughts.net");
feeds.Authors.Add(
    new SyndicationPerson("anuraj@dotnetthoughts.net", "Anuraj", "dotnetthoughts.net"));
feeds.Language = "en-us";
string responseString;
using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    using (XmlWriter xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(ms))
    {
        string rss = HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["rss"];
        if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(rss))
        {
            feeds.SaveAsAtom10(xmlWriter);
        }
        else
        {
            feeds.SaveAsRss20(xmlWriter);
        }
        xmlWriter.Flush();
        xmlWriter.Close();
    }
    responseString = System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.UTF8.GetString(ms.ToArray());
}

context.Response.ContentType = "text/xml";
context.Response.Write(responseString);
context.Response.End();

And here is the screenshot of RSS feed in Internet Explorer.

RSS Feed in Internet Explorer

There are more useful tags which you can use to create the RSS feed, such as the category or an unique ID. You found more information on Creating RSS Feed in the RSS 2.0 specification page.

Happy Programming.