Yes, it&#39;s called [Microsoft CryptoAPI][1].


 [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(computing)#Windows

This link from StingyJack&#39;s answer is good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptGenRandom

Microsoft C++ Visual Studio since 2005 offers [`rand_s()`](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sxtz2fa8.aspx) which works on Windows XP and up.  It is based on [`RtlGenRandom`](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa387694.aspx) (as are CryptoAPI&#39;s PRNG functions), whose inner workings are not made public. It seems in XP there were some weaknesses that have since been fixed.

Personally, I use `rand_s()` as an additional source of randomness to seed a PRNG of my choice.

If you&#39;re doing .NET development you can use the [RandomNumberGenerator][1] class.


  [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.randomnumbergenerator.aspx

I have a Stored procedure which schedules a job. This Job takes a lot of time to get completed (approx 30 to 40 min). I need to get to know the status of this Job.
Below details would help me

1) How to see the list of all jobs that have got scheduled for a future time and are yet to start

2) How to see the the list of jobs running and the time span from when they are running

3) How to see if the job has completed successfully or has stoped in between because of any error.


How can I determine the status of a job?

I am looking for the best way to test if a website is alive from a C# application.

### Background
My application consists of a *Winforms UI*, a backend *WCF service* and a *website* to publish content to the UI and other consumers. To prevent the situation where the UI starts up and fails to work properly because of a missing WCF service or website being down I have added an app startup check to ensure that all everything is alive.

The application is being written in C#, .NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008

### Current Solution
Currently I am making a web request to a test page on the website that will inturn test the web site and then display a result.

    WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(&quot;http://localhost/myContentSite/test.aspx&quot;);
    WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();

I am assuming that if there are no exceptions thown during this call then all is well and the UI can start.

### Question
Is this the simplest, right way or is there some other sneaky call that I don&#39;t know about in C# or a better way to do it.


Test if a website is alive from a C# application


Is there a way to generate random number on Windows by reading from a file or psuedo-file or character special file, the way that can be done on Linux by reading from [/dev/random][1]?


  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urandom#Linux

Windows equivalent of /dev/random

<p>Is there a way to generate random number on Windows by reading from a file or psuedo-file or character special file, the way that can be done on Linux by reading from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urandom#Linux" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">/dev/random</a>?</p>


Is there any way to set a system wide memory limit a process can use in Windows XP? I have a couple of unstable apps which do work ok for most of the time but can hit a bug which results in eating whole memory in a matter of seconds (or at least I suppose that&#39;s it). This results in a hard reset as Windows becomes totally unresponsive and I lose my work.

I would like to be able to do something like the /etc/limits on Linux - setting M90, for instance (to set 90% max memory for a single user to allocate). So the system gets the remaining 10% no matter what.

Set Windows process (or user) memory limit

I&#39;m using:

    FileInfo(
        System.Environment.GetFolderPath(
            System.Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFiles) 
        + @&quot;\MyInstalledApp&quot;

In order to determine if a program is detected on a users machine (it&#39;s not ideal, but the program I&#39;m looking for is a right old kludge of a MS-DOS application, and I couldn&#39;t think of another method).

On Windows XP and 32-bit versions of Windows Vista this works fine. However, on x64 Windows Vista the code returns the x64 Program Files folder, whereas the application is installed in Program Files x86. Is there a way to programatically return the path to Program Files x86 without hard wiring &quot;C:\Program Files (x86)&quot;?


C# - How to get Program Files (x86) on Windows 64 bit

During the installation of Apache2 I got the following message into cmd window:


&gt; Installing the Apache2.2 service The
&gt; Apache2.2 service is successfully
&gt; installed. Testing httpd.conf....
&gt; 
&gt; Errors reported here must be corrected
&gt; before the service can be started.
&gt; httpd.exe: Could not reliably
&gt; determine the server&#39;s fully qualified
&gt; domain name , using 192.168.1.3 for
&gt; ServerName (OS 10048)Only one usage of
&gt; each socket address (protocol/network
&gt; address/port) is normally permitted. 
&gt; : make_sock: could not bind to address
&gt; 0.0.0.0:80 no listening sockets available, shutting down Unable to
&gt; open logs Note the errors or messages
&gt; above, and press the &lt;ESC&gt; key to
&gt; exit.  24...

and after installing everything look fine, but it isn&#39;t. If I try to start service I got the following message:

&gt; Windows could not start the Apache2 on
&gt; Local Computer.  For more information,
&gt; review the System Event Log.  If this
&gt; is a non-Micorsoft service, contact
&gt; the service vendor, and refer to
&gt; service-specific error code 1.

Apach2 version is 2.2.9

Does anyone have the same problem, or could help me.




Windows could not start the Apache2 on Local Computer - problem

I noticed when a file is executed on Windows (.exe or .dll), it is locked and cannot be deleted, moved or modified.

Linux, on the other hand, does not lock executing files and you *can* delete, move, or modify them.

Why does Windows lock when Linux does not? Is there an advantage to locking?

Locking Executing Files: Windows does, Linux doesn&#39;t. Why?

How does Windows with NTFS perform with large volumes of files and directories?

Is there any guidance around limits of files or directories you can place in a single directory before you run into performance problems or other issues? 

E.g. is having a folder with 100,000 folders inside of it an OK thing to do?

NTFS performance and large volumes of files and directories

Is there a succinct way to retrieve a random record from a sql server table?  

I would like to randomize my unit test data, so am looking for a simple way to select a random id from a table.  In English, the select would be &quot;Select one id from the table where the id is a random number between the lowest id in the table and the highest id in the table.&quot;  

I can&#39;t figure out a way to do it without have to run the query, test for a null value, then re-run if null.

Ideas?

Random record from a database table (T-SQL)

I&#39;m looking for some succinct, modern C# code to generate a random date between Jan 1 1995 and the current date.

I&#39;m thinking some solution that utilizes Enumerable.Range somehow may make this more succinct.

Random date in C#

I&#39;d like to generate unique random numbers between 0 and 1000 that never repeat (i.e. 6 doesn&#39;t show up twice), but that doesn&#39;t resort to something like an O(N) search of previous values to do it. Is this possible?

Unique (non-repeating) random numbers in O(1)?

How do I generate a random number between `0` and `n`?

How to get a random number in Ruby

I&#39;ve got an image library on Amazon S3. For each image, I md5 the source URL on my server plus a timestamp to get a unique filename. Since S3 can&#39;t have subdirectories, I need to store all of these images in a single flat folder.

Do I need to worry about collisions in the MD5 hash value that gets produced?

Bonus: How many files could I have before I&#39;d start seeing collisions in the hash value that MD5 produces?

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Ian G	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Windows	Bill the Lizard	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Windows	cxxl	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Windows	tvanfosson	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Windows equivalent of /dev/random

Windows Problem Overview

Windows Solutions

Solution 1 - Windows

Solution 2 - Windows

Solution 3 - Windows

Test if a website is alive from a C# application

How can I determine the status of a job?

Attributions