Visual Studio Web performance or Load testing, requests always go through a proxy

In, Visual Studio 2013, Web Performance Testing project, Select your WebTest
In root element, select properties and check the proxy value. This (proxy value) is always set to "default"

Sometimes its preferable for tests to not go through a proxy as a proxy has its own bottleneck. Visual Studio will not allowing you to change this value to blank (to not use a proxy). If you remove the proxy value, VS will put default back again automatically.

This is because "default" means use the system proxy while running tests. If you do not want your test runs to use a proxy, disable the proxy in the system.
To do this, go to Internet Explorer, Select Tools, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings, and un-check all proxy enable check boxes

Windows domain account getting locked

Domain account was getting locked out at random times.

Turns out Windows 8.1 mail was configured and I missed to update the password there and it kept retrying with the old password and locking it.

Webservice authentication does not work on IIS7, IIS8 & IIS8.5

You get 401 Authhorization failed (401.2 to be exact seen in IIS logs)
If you have enabled windows authentication in IIS, you should be able to hit the URL via browser, with no issues. This is assuming the account is allowed via authentication controls.

Problem is that in IIS7, IIS8 & IIS8.5, Basic authentication is not installed by default. if you do not have this option in authentication, you have to install basic authentication by via Server Manager,  Add Roles and Features, IIS, Security, Basic authentication.

Once done you should be able to enable Basic authentication and make WebService calls work.

how to find description of "sc-substatus" code from IIS logs

Open command line and issue command net helpmsg where is the number you got from iis logs.
Example:

c:\net helpmsg 1326

The user name or password is incorrect.

How to check SSL version used to connect to a website

To see what version of SSL you are using, in Internet Explorer (IE)
Visit the website you want to check in IE
Once the page is loaded, go to File (You may have to press Alt key for menu options to show up) and then select Properties

Now, review the connection value in this popup. This shows the type of connection made as well as the SSL versions. In this example, this popup shows TLS 1.2

In chrome, click the green icon next to the URL once the page loads. Now, click the tab connection and shows the SSL versions. In the below example, it shows TLS 1.2

Saints Row IV - the steam servers are too busy to handle your request (error code 53)

Was getting error the steam servers are too busy to handle your request (error code 53) trying to start  Saints Row 4.

Turned our McAfee was creating an issue. All I had to do to solve as turn off real time scanning for a moment while the first time the game was run. Once the game started up for first time, I was able to enable McAfee real time scanning back on. Happily, didn't see this issue anymore. Guess the real time protection was blocking installing the software.

Validation of viewstate MAC failed when posting from one aspx file to another (cross posting asp.net forms)

The error
Validation of viewstate MAC failed. If this application is hosted by a Web Farm or cluster, ensure that configuration specifies the same validationKey and validation algorithm. AutoGenerate cannot be used in a cluster.


We have a aspx form that posts to another form. This was done by changing form action for the first form to point to the second form. When this happens, asp.net was giving the above error.

As a solution, the submit button on the form was also changed to update the postbackURL to point to the second aspx page. So essentially, the form action and also the submit button postback URL were both pointed to the second aspz page where the form data is submitted!

Example:
this.Form.Action = "MyPage2.aspx";
SubmitButtonCtl.PostBackUrl = "MyPage2.aspx";