Using the Sample Files

dsimcox · June 25th, 2010, 10:52 AM

I have downloaded the zipped archive of sample files, and have expanded the set of files for Chapter 9 into a folder on my desktop named "Ch9".

When I try to open the project named "Make Buttons" in Visual Studio, by double clicking the MakeButtons.vbproj or MakeButtons.sln files, I get 5 errors copied below. It seems to be having trouble identifying the files associated with the Make Buttons project.

How should I open the sample files to use in Visual Studio?

Thanks for your help!

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Error 1 Resource file "My Project\Resources.resx" cannot be found. MakeButtons

Error 2 Unable to open module file 'C:\Documents and Settings\g043965\Desktop\Ch9\My Project\Application.Designer.vb': The system cannot find the file specified.

Error 3 Unable to open module file 'C:\Documents and Settings\g043965\Desktop\Ch9\My Project\AssemblyInfo.vb': The system cannot find the file specified.

Error 4 Unable to open module file 'C:\Documents and Settings\g043965\Desktop\Ch9\My Project\Resources.Designer.vb': The system cannot find the file specified.

Error 5 Unable to open module file 'C:\Documents and Settings\g043965\Desktop\Ch9\My Project\Settings.Designer.vb': The system cannot find the file specified.

Rod Stephens · June 25th, 2010, 10:57 AM

Did you extract the files or just drill into the Zip file in Windows Explorer? If you just open the file in Windows Explorer, it looks like you have all of the files ready to go but Visual Studio doesn't know how to access the files while they are still in the Zip file so it gets all confused.

If you right-click on the Zip file and select Extract All, you should be able to extract all of the files.

Or open the Zip file in Windows Explorer and drag folders out of it to some other location on your disk. Then you should be able to use those folders.

Let me know if that works.

dsimcox · June 28th, 2010, 11:29 AM

Thanks for your quick response, Rod. I extracted all of the zipped files in the Ch09.zip archive to a folder on my desktop (named Ch9)

In Visual Studio 2008 I used File => Open Project and navigated to the Ch9 folder of unzipped files on my desktop and selected UseSplitter.vbproj.
It opens, but is unable to open the following files:

Application.Designer.vb
AssemblyInfo.vb
Resources.Designer.vb
Settings.Designer.vb

"The error message includes: Unable to open module file . . . The system cannot find the file specified"

I've tried opening other example projects, and these same files are not loaded.

Does that help to identify the source of my problem?

Rod Stephens · June 28th, 2010, 01:52 PM

Hmm... Did you extract the entire folder recursively? Those files should be in the My Project subdirectory. Take look in your unzipped folder and make sure that subdirectory is there and contains the files.

If the subdirectory or those files are missing from the zip file, email me and I'll send you a new zip file. It's possible the one you have didn't download correctly or is corrupted and won't unzip properly.

dsimcox · June 28th, 2010, 04:39 PM

That resolved the problem. I had only extracted the files for Ch09. When I extracted the entire set of files for all of the chapters, the samples worked correctly.

Thanks a lot for helping me troubleshoot this.

bob witte · July 3rd, 2010, 03:42 AM

I downloaded all code samples and extracted each chapter into its own subdirectory. Mostly, your zipped files are flat - hence there is no 'Projects Folder'. The 5 files are flat in the chapter of interest (37). Only ch 2, 37 & Appendices have subdirectories. The ch 37 My Projects dir is empty. The 'missing' files are flat in ch37 unzipped. If each chapter should have subs, I definitely didn't get that structure in teh d/l.

My email is restricted to 10MB per. If you send me something [all chapters] please break into smaller-than-10MB chunks.

When I open Project in Studio 2010, and select ReadLInes.vbproj, it warns me that conversion is needed and reports that

Error 1 Unable to open module file 'D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\Application.Designer.vb': The system cannot find the file specified. D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\Application.Designer.vb 1 1 ReadLines
Error 2 Unable to open module file 'D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\AssemblyInfo.vb': The system cannot find the file specified. D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\AssemblyInfo.vb 1 1 ReadLines
Error 3 Unable to open module file 'D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\Resources.Designer.vb': The system cannot find the file specified. D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\Resources.Designer.vb 1 1 ReadLines
Error 4 Unable to open module file 'D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\Settings.Designer.vb': The system cannot find the file specified. D:\_DATA\_RTC\VB\Visual Basic 2008\37\My Project\Settings.Designer.vb 1 1 ReadLines

dsimcox · July 3rd, 2010, 07:02 AM

Hello Bob,

I think if you will just leave all of the extracted files in one folder, it will work for you. Apparently there are shared files that you will miss if you try to segregate the files by chapter.

Del

bob witte · July 3rd, 2010, 11:16 AM

I don'dt understand any of your reply. The code segments only come in chapter-size blocks - either a chapter at a time or all chapter-size blocks zipped into one file. When you unznip the big file you get 30-odd smaller zip files, each one of which must be unziiped somewhere. So thereis NO "leave all teh extracated files in one folder". They do not come in one folder. I would have to put them there and there is no indication that this would work and a good probability; that it would fail due to namiing overlaps, etc.

AS STATED ABOVE,, the erant fils are not missing - they are in the flat chapter files. Evidently, the code/structure is expecting to find them somewhere else - womewhere that was sent as an empty structure or not sent all, since only 2 of the chapters are not flat, ie no structure.

Please try again.

Rod Stephens · July 4th, 2010, 01:00 AM

There should be some structure. Each chapter should contain example directories. Each of those should contain project files and a My Project directory that contains other project files. Visual Studio needs them all to be in the places it expects or it gets confused. (I think Microsoft scattered things about like this to hide files that you normally don't edit directly such as the resources and settings files.)

Probably the easiest way to extract the files is to double-click on the zip file to open it in Windows Explorer. If you have the full project in one zip file, drill down into (for example) the Ch06.zip file inside the big zip file. When you find the Ch06 directory, drag it onto the desktop (or wherever). You should be able to open the new Ch06 directory and see the sub-directories and their My Projects directories.

If you have the separate chapter zip files, you only need to drill down 1 level before you get to the Ch06 directory, which you can drag onto the desktop.

(Don't just pull out the project files. It's hard to get all of them and their support files in the correct places so Visual Studio doesn't get confused.)

If you're still not seeing the sub-directories (including My Project), then something is wrong with the file or it's not unzipping properly. You might want to get new copies of the files. I would start with a single smaller file to make sure it works before you download everything.

You can get the files for this edition at:

http://www.vb-helper.com/vb_prog_ref_source_3e.html

Let me know if you're still stuck. I'm on the road right now but will reply when I can.

bob witte · July 4th, 2010, 03:49 PM

tho it appears flat no matter how I look at the downloaded zip file and its 1st level extracted zip files, they all appear flat. On unziping each of hte 39 again, this time they came out structured unzipped. So I guess I'm there.