Blog about Microsoft technologies (.NET, ASP.NET Core, Blazor, EF Core, WPF, TypeScript, etc.)Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.meziantou.net/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationI recently released Meziantou.GitHubActionsTracing, a tool that converts GitHub Actions workflow runs into trace data. In this post, I show how to use it to debug slow or flaky CI pipelines with timeline-based analysis instead of raw logs only. Why GitHub Actions runs are hard to diagnose GitHub Actions logs are great for understanding what happened, but not for quickly seeing where time is spent. When a…https://www.meziantou.net/visualize-github-actions-runs-with-meziantou-githubactionstracing.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationcbfe38e9-d7c2-45cf-a55e-c5cafe33069fGérald BarréMon, 09 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMTToolsWindows has supported case-sensitive file operations for a long time, but it was not easily accessible or enabled by default. Since Windows 10 (version 1803), it is possible to enable case sensitivity on a per-directory basis. This feature was introduced primarily to support the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), but it can be used by any application. In this post, we'll see how to enable case sensitivity…https://www.meziantou.net/creating-case-sensitive-folders-on-windows-using-csharp.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndication7947d924-5986-4694-8b84-45b410b72da8Gérald BarréMon, 02 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT.NETWindowsWindows has a set of reserved filenames that cannot be used for files or folders. These names are reserved for legacy reasons, dating back to DOS. If you try to create a file or folder with one of these names, you will get an error. The list of reserved names is: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL COM0 through COM9 LPT0 through LPT9 These names come from DOS, where devices were exposed as special file-like names. For…https://www.meziantou.net/reserved-filenames-on-windows-con-prn-aux-nul.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationd9ef4eef-0df6-45a0-9986-ccd372a6878fGérald BarréMon, 23 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT.NETWindowsWhen writing GitHub Actions workflows, it is generally recommended to keep your scripts in separate files and reference them using the path attribute of the run step. This allows you to lint and test your scripts easily using standard tools. However, this approach is not always practical. For instance, when creating a reusable workflow or a simple action, you might prefer to keep everything in a single…https://www.meziantou.net/validating-powershell-script-syntax-in-github-actions-workflows.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationf2a5f211-cabc-450a-ab86-08dafc62186bGérald BarréMon, 16 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMTPowerShellToolsMSBuild binary logs (binlogs) are a powerful tool for diagnosing build issues. If you're not familiar with binlogs, check out my post Exploring a MSBuild binary log using the binary log viewer to get started, or Stop using diagnostic verbosity in MSBuild to understand why binlogs are better than diagnostic verbosity. By default, binlogs capture a lot of information, but you can get even more details about…https://www.meziantou.net/getting-more-information-in-msbuild-binlogs-with-property-tracking.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationdf491877-23d3-4093-9dc3-2d16a5468e7bGérald BarréMon, 09 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT.NETWhen debugging or logging, you often need to know where a method is defined in your source code. While .NET provides caller information attributes like [CallerMemberName], [CallerFilePath], and [CallerLineNumber], these only work at compile-time and require you to add parameters to your methods. What if you want to retrieve source file information for any method at runtime? One use-case is…https://www.meziantou.net/retrieve-method-source-file-location-at-runtime-using-portable-pdbs-in-dotnet.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationfe1bfad9-dc8d-4558-b253-5fd164b66ec5Gérald BarréMon, 19 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT.NETIf you're using self-hosted GitHub Actions runners, you might have noticed they can be surprisingly CPU-intensive, even when idle. A closer look reveals that a single runner can peg a CPU core at 100% utilization. This isn't a bug in your workflow; it's a deliberate design choice in the runner's sleep mechanism. The problem: Busy-waiting Instead of using standard, efficient sleep functions provided by the…https://www.meziantou.net/reduce-github-actions-runner-cpu-usage.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationa6878532-2ee6-430c-8356-6dd2dee4e04cGérald BarréMon, 29 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMTTipsWhat is Mark of the Web? Mark of the Web (MOTW) is a Windows security feature that protects users from potentially unsafe files downloaded from the internet. When you download a file, Windows automatically adds a special metadata tag indicating the file originated from an untrusted source and may contain harmful content. Windows components such as Microsoft Edge and Windows Explorer use MOTW to determine…https://www.meziantou.net/understanding-and-managing-mark-of-the-web-in-dotnet.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationa0160630-c84c-4be1-8d24-0929e66a1715Gérald BarréMon, 22 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT.NETSecurityWindowsOverloadResolutionPriority allows you to specify which method overload should be preferred by the compiler when multiple overloads are applicable. This can be useful in scenarios where you have multiple methods with types that can be implicitly converted to each other, and you want to control which overload is chosen. I've found this feature particularly useful when having existing overloads that take…https://www.meziantou.net/resolving-overload-ambiguity-with-collection-expressions.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndication0d2234f0-6a3a-441c-8274-bcd607042a6eGérald BarréMon, 08 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT.NETThis blog post is part of The C# Advent Calendar 2025, a series of 50 posts about C#. Be sure to check out the rest of the blog posts in the calendar! Over the years, I've relied on Meziantou.DotNet.CodingStandard, a NuGet package, to establish a consistent baseline across all my .NET projects. This approach includes style enforcement, essential analyzers, sensible build defaults, and additional tooling.…https://www.meziantou.net/creating-a-custom-msbuild-sdk-to-reduce-boilerplate-in-dotnet-projects.htm?utm_medium=social&utm_source=syndicationdeef76a0-3a05-4c81-8089-570c146d6894Gérald BarréTue, 02 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT.NET