If you are building a custom installer of your own, you might want to compress the files inside a ZIP and extract them on need basis. You can easily do this by using some 3rd party libraries, among which some are free and some are paid versions. Why to use additional libraries if the .NET framework provides you the set of APIs?

You might be aware of this, but if you are unaware of it, let me tell you that, it was present since .NET 2.0. Let’s explore it in today’s quick blog tips & tricks. Continue reading and share the link in your network.

Whenever you create a new code file in Visual Studio, it adds a default set of using namespaces automatically to faster the development process in common name resolution. Not all of them are mandatory to use and can be remove at later point of time or before code check-in.

Visual Studio 2015 provides us an easy way to organize the using namespaces within the active code file, project and/or solution. You will really love this new feature. Continue reading to learn more about it.

Apart from the other cool new features, the giant company also added a feature in Microsoft Visual Studio named “Layout Management”. This is a nice feature for people working on multiple devices with Visual Studio 2015. Using this you will be able to save and sync your IDE layout across devices.

Today in this post, we are going to discuss this and will learn how to save and sync the Window Layout. Continue reading and let us know, how this can benefit you.

For some people, it is sometimes irritating when the "Output" window automatically opens up on the screen when building a project or solution in Visual Studio. For some people, it's the reverse case and they want to check the entire log while the build is running or the console application is running in debug mode.

In Visual Studio, you can control this behavior and ask the IDE whether to open it into view or not. It’s not specific to Visual Studio 2015 and is available since VS 2013. Let's see how to enable/disable it.

It happens many times (during the coding or code review process) when we need a bigger space in our favorite Visual Studio IDE to check/read the code completely. Closing all the other docked windows/panels, toolbars and then adding them one by one is really very difficult and time-consuming.

Visual Studio 2015 provides us an easy way to switch between a full screen and normal mode. This way, you don’t have to do extra work to create a bigger space. Continue reading to learn more on this topic.

If you are working in Visual Studio 2015 IDE, you might have noticed the “Quick Launch” search bar, which allows you to quickly navigate to common menus and settings. This is a handy tool that you will need while searching for some options or features within the popular IDE.

Today this post will cover how to enable/disable this “Quick Launch” bar. Continue reading to know these quick tips & tricks on Visual Studio 2015. Pass it on to your friends/colleagues.

Registry is the heart of Windows Operating System and all/most of the apps and games associates various values/data into the registry, which can be accessed at different point of time. Playing with Windows registry is very dangerous and hence general people should avoid or take special care while working with it.

In case you are a developer, you want to read/write/delete entries to/fro Windows Registry. This post will cover details and code snippets to delete an entire key tree from it. Continue reading to learn how to do it.

Sometime we need to find out details of running process which is external to your current process, might be a third party one. If you are currently looking for some code to find out details of a process, this post will definitely help you. Here we will learn, how to get the process description using C#.

Continue reading to learn about it. Also, sample code has been shared for you to understand it better. If you have specific query, drop a line in the comment section.

I hope you read my previous post on “Building a Toast Notification with text for apps targeting Universal Windows Platform”. There we learned how to create a very basic toast notification. Continuing the series of posts, today we will learn how to add buttons within the notification.

Let’s begin with building toast notification with text and buttons. Stay tuned to learn creating more complex notifications in next blog posts of this series.

If you are a developer and building apps or games for Windows 10, targetting Universal Windows Platform (aka. UWP), you might want to show toast notifications to the user of your app/game. You might also want to provide some additional content like textbox, button etc. to get specific inputs.

As part of this tutorial series, we are going to learn how to show custom toast notifications. Today let’s begin with building simple toast notification with text. Stay tuned to learn complex notifications in next blog posts.

Windows 10 SDK provides an easy to implement project template by which you can quickly create an app for Universal Windows Platform which you can use to run a hosted web app. You don’t have to create the whole app, if the site is already running. Just change few values in manifest file and your app will be running.

In this post, we will learn how to create a hosted web app targeting Windows 10 (without writing any code). Share your feedback and/or ask your queries, if any.

If you are building apps/game for Universal Windows Platform, you might want to retrieve the device information where the app/game is currently running. You might use this information to log details about any exception and/or to do specific action based on device details.

In this post, we will learn how to fetch the device information in UWP apps. Continue to read about the APIs exposed by Microsoft SDK. Don’t forget to read my other posts too and share your feedback.

How many times we are in such a condition when our battery is going to die and we have to do some important calls or something else? If we poll for it, the count will be high. If you are a developer and building apps targeting Universal Windows Platform (aka. UWP), you might want to integrate the battery APIs already exposed.

This post will cover about the API today and we will learn how more about the API with proper demonstration. Continue to read more on this topic and don’t forget to check other posts on the same topic.

If you are a developer building apps for Universal Windows Platform, you might have noticed that, at the time of debugging there are some strings of digit getting display just under the title bar of the application. This is called as Frame Rate Counter, which displays frame rate and per frame CPU usage.

Today in this small blog post, we will learn how to enable/disable the Frame Rate Counter in your Universal Windows apps. Countinue reading to know more about it.

If you are a developer and building apps for Universal Windows apps, you might like to customize your app title bar to match your app theme. You can also change various colors of the buttons. Windows 10 SDK provides you to customize the title bar of Universal apps.

Today in this blog post, we will learn how to apply custom colors in apps built for Universal Windows Platform along with different other APIs exposed for it.

If you are building add-ins for Microsoft Word, at the time of add-in installation you might want to check whether user has installed MS Word on his system or not. Based on that, you might want to show a message to the user or take proper action as per your business need.

In this small blog post, we will learn what needs to be done using C# to find out whether the said Microsoft Office product is installed or not. Continue reading to know about this coding tricks.

On various scenarios, especially when you are building and shipping Add-Ins for outlook, at the time of add-in installation you might want to check whether user has installed outlook on his system or not. Based on that, you might want to show a message to the user.

In this small blog post, we will learn what needs to be done using C# to find out whether outlook is installed or not. Continue reading to know about this coding tricks.

Few days ago, I wrote a blog post about Windows 10 Start Screen image programmatically using C# code. Today in this blog post, we will discuss about changing Lock Screen background image of Windows 10 using C# code. Microsoft Windows SDK provides the API sets to call.

Let’s start learning about the API with a small piece of code. Continue reading. Code has been shared at the end of the post. If you have any comments, drop a line.

Microsoft aired Windows 10 build 10586 for the fast ring Windows Insiders. If you are one of them, you can get it via Windows Update service. This build is mainly focused on bug fixes and improvements to move forward the final build of Threshold 2. As it is a developer preview build, has some known issues.

This post lists all the fixes and known issues in this build. Before installing, please go thru the lists. Windows Feedback app to report any problems that you might encounter with this build.

Along with Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build 10581, the giant company also released Windows 10 Insider Preview build 10576 for PCs. This is the first time when Microsoft released Windows 10 for both the platform. This build features few new changes along with a bunch of bug fixes and improvements.

If you are a Windows Insider in fast ring, you might have already got the notification about this update. Sharing here the new features set, list of bug fixes and known issues.