Brothers In Code

After adding a "web service reference" in visual studio and instantiating the generated proxy class, I noticed I was a parameter short.  The web service method had three parameters - a custom class, an 'out' int and an 'out' string.  But the proxy class only had the first and the last of those three parameters.  I took a quick look at the WSDL and that was correct.  I had also added a reference to a similar service the week before so I knew that you could have multiple 'out' parameters.  After a little googling I found this article.  Because my web method returned 'void' the proxy class generator was using the first 'out' param as the return value instead.  I just returned a Boolean instead and that made my first out parameter show up as a parameter in the proxy class.

I'll log errors to the event log for just about any app that I write with something like the following:

EventLog eventLog = new EventLog();
eventLog.Source = "My App Name";
eventLog.WriteEntry(message, EventLogEntryType.Error);

This is no problem for a windows app, but for an asp.net app running under a restricted account, you'll likely get an error:

System.Security.SecurityException: Requested registry access is not allowed.

The issue described here recommends either adding the event source manually in the registry or creating an EventLogInstaller.  Unless you're creating a commercial software package, you're probabaly going to go the registry route.  The only issue here is that the article leaves a peice out.  Adding only the key will allow your app to write to the event log but rather than your own neatly formatted error message you'll see:

The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source (<application name>) could not be found. It contains the following insertion string(s):

If you look at other keys you'll see they contain an "EventMessageFile" reg_expand_sz (expandable string value).  Asp.net 2.0 or higher apps will have the value "c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\EventLogMessages.dll".  If you want a quick fix, here's the reg file code (make sure you save as unicode):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application\YourSourceNameHere]
"EventMessageFile"=hex(2):63,00,3a,00,5c,00,57,00,49,00,4e,00,44,00,4f,00,57,\
  00,53,00,5c,00,4d,00,69,00,63,00,72,00,6f,00,73,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,2e,00,\
  4e,00,45,00,54,00,5c,00,46,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,65,00,77,00,6f,00,72,00,6b,\
  00,5c,00,76,00,32,00,2e,00,30,00,2e,00,35,00,30,00,37,00,32,00,37,00,5c,00,\
  45,00,76,00,65,00,6e,00,74,00,4c,00,6f,00,67,00,4d,00,65,00,73,00,73,00,61,\
  00,67,00,65,00,73,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
 
 
 
 Here's the .net 4.0 version....

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Application\YourSourceNameHere]
"EventMessageFile"=hex(2):63,00,3a,00,5c,00,57,00,49,00,4e,00,44,00,4f,00,57,\
  00,53,00,5c,00,4d,00,69,00,63,00,72,00,6f,00,73,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,2e,00,\
  4e,00,45,00,54,00,5c,00,46,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,65,00,77,00,6f,00,72,00,6b,\
  00,5c,00,76,00,34,00,2e,00,30,00,2e,00,33,00,30,00,33,00,31,00,39,00,5c,00,\
  45,00,76,00,65,00,6e,00,74,00,4c,00,6f,00,67,00,4d,00,65,00,73,00,73,00,61,\
  00,67,00,65,00,73,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00