More hell issues code signing VSIX extensions
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
6M ago
Continuing on the subject of “Code signing a VSIX package with a hardware-based USB token key”, there are some issues with the new hardware-based code signing certificates shipping since June 1, 2023 make the code signing extremely tricky or impossible in Yubikey keys, the most popular ones. Here they are and please vote up for them for Microsoft to improve the current scenario: “Misleading documentation regarding SHA256 required to sign VSIX packages”: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Misleading-documentation-regarding-SHA25/10481764 “Insufficient documentation to sign VSIX pac ..read more
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Code signing a VSIX package with a hardware-based USB token key
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
6M ago
Yes, I know that 5 years have passed since my last post here. That last post was about Code signing a VSIX package targeting multiple Visual Studio versions and this one is a continuation. As you may know, there are three kinds of code signing certificates: Individual Validation (IV) Organization Validation (OV) Extended Validation (EV) Until June 1, 2023, only EV certificates were issued on hardware-based devices such as USB keys. But since that date, IV and OV certificates provided by all vendors are only issued either on Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 (FIPS 140-2) USB token ..read more
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Code signing a VSIX package targeting multiple Visual Studio versions
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
You know that I am such a big fan of targeting multiple Visual Studio versions with the same VSIX file that I wrote an article for MSDN Magazine explaining the approach to target  from Visual Studio 2012 to Visual Studio 2017. In that article I didn’t explain how to code sign such VSIX file to work with multiple Visual Studio versions but this week I have got a (personal) code signing certificate. First things first, if you don’t code sign your VSIX file, the VSIX installer shows that the digital signature is none: To code sign a vsix file, you can’t use the regular signtool.exe tool of ..read more
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The VisualStudio-TestHost project to execute interactive UI tests in Visual Studio
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
I started with automated tests for my MZ-Tools extension early in the development of version 7.0 (then an add-in, not a package), ten years ago, around the year 2008 or so. At that time Visual Studio 2008 provided a Visual Studio TestHost dll (even with source code, if I remember correctly) to run automated tests of Visual Studio packages using the own Visual Studio. I remember that it was so painful to use that approach (crashes, hangings, etc.) that after months of investment I threw all the stuff and started to build my own test framework infrastructure and test runner: (yep, I have 3,354 a ..read more
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Two videos about building High Performance Extensions by Omer Raviv
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
Omer Raviv, author of the OzCode extension for Visual Studio, has recorded two videos with Robert Green on Channel 9 about building high performance extensions for Visual Studio. If creating extensions for Visual Studio is already tricky, creating high performance extensions is quite difficult and Omer has some advices and techniques about it. The first video is this one: Building High Performance Extensions Part 1 And the second one is this: Building High Performance Extensions Part 2 ..read more
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BUG: EnvDTE.CodeElement.GetStartPoint(vsCMPartBody) / GetEndPoint(vsCMPartBody) throw COMException for expression-bodied methods and properties
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
Some days ago I got a bug report from a user that was using the new expression-bodied methods and properties introduced by C# 6.0, which have the following form: public class Class1 { public int Function1() => 0; public int Property1 => 0; } After some investigation, it turned out that the problem was in the calls to get the start/end points of the body of the EnvDTE.CodeElement representing them: codeElement.GetStartPoint(vsCMPartBody) codeElement.GetEndPoint(vsCMPartBody) For those kind of code elements, the code model throws COMException (not even NotImplementedException), whe ..read more
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MSDN Magazine article: Creating Extensions for Multiple Visual Studio Versions
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
Back in April or May I started to write a post on this blog about creating extensions for multiple Visual Studio versions. I have been struggling to support multiple versions of Visual Studio with my MZ-Tools add-in since Visual Studio .NET (2002) / 2003, and other IDEs such as VB6/VB5/VBA before that. So, I know how tricky it can be to share as much code as possible between versions, and using a single binary dll / setup if possible. It seems that I am not the only one wanting to target multiple Visual Studio versions with a single vsix package because I have seen lots of questions in the for ..read more
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About the new privateregistry.bin file of Visual Studio 2017
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
As I explained in the post Some implications of the new modular setup of Visual Studio 2017 for VSX developers, Visual Studio 2017 introduces among others two significant changes compared to Visual Studio 2015: It allows several Visual Studio editions (Community, Professional, Enterprise) to coexist at the same time on the same machine. For VSX developers, this means that Visual Studio 2017 installations now use different folders on disk, and instance Ids. It uses its own private registry. This post is about this. From Visual Studio .NET 2002 to Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio used tw ..read more
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Sample code and utilities to get installed Visual Studio 2017 editions programmatically
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
As I explained in the post Some implications of the new modular setup of Visual Studio 2017 for VSX developers, Visual Studio 2017 has changed all that you knew about installations of Visual Studio. In this episode of Channel 9, Art Leonard explains to Robert Green the internals of this re-architecture of Visual Studio: The use of a private registry file causes that if you want to know programmatically the installed editions of Visual Studio 2017, the old approaches don’t work. For example, my article HOWTO: Detect installed Visual Studio editions, packages or service packs is ..read more
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Building a VSIX extension with the Visual Studio 2017 Build Tools
Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
by Carlos Quintero
3y ago
As I explained in the post Migrating the build of a VSIX project to a build server if you are a solo developer, I am taking the steps to build my MZ-Tools extension on a build/release server. As part of that process, I realized than rather than installing Visual Studio 2017 Community edition on the server, I could use the Visual Studio 2017 Build Tools that were thought, well, for build servers that don’t need the overhead of a Visual Studio 2017 installation. They are a lightweight version of Visual Studio 2017 without the IDE (devenv.exe executable). They can be used to build either managed ..read more
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