Don’t do iisreset do …
a mini batch file in your start menu, when you're debugging the application startup of a .Net application, and keep wanting to restart it:
taskkill /im aspnet_wp.exe /f if not errorlevel == 0 pause
or
taskkill /im w3wp.exe /f if not errorlevel == 0 pause
which does the job much faster.
Assuming, of course, that your reason for wanting to do an iis reset was to force a .Net application restart. And you don't mind forcing all running .Net applications to restart. And you're not on a busy production machine at rushhour.
Sysinternals’ Autoruns for Windows (What’s this process / program?)
Sysinternals has been taken over by Microsoft which gives a nice reassuring hue to all their nifty tools. Autoruns for Windows is the one you want to find out about processes which start up from the registry or other automatic means.
Why are my TFS local folder paths ridiculously long?
Well, without actually answering the question (oh, okay then - it's because they usually match the branch and directory path in TFS of course, but you knew that anyway) what you really wanted to know was how to fix it.
Easy. You want to play with the rows in File - Source Control - Workspaces - Edit...
Specifically, instead of one row listing the TeamProject root like this:
| Source ControlFolder | Local Folder |
|---|---|
| $/MyTeamProject | C:\MyLocalWorkspaceRoot\ |
You want several rows, one for each solution you are currently working on, listing the actual solution file directories in TFS that you personally work with, and the - much shorter - local path you want to check out in:
| Source ControlFolder | Local Folder |
|---|---|
| $/MyTeamProject/Path/To/BranchXX/SolutionAA/ | C:\MyLocalWorkspaceRoot\XX-AA |
| $/MyTeamProject/Path/To/BranchYY/SolutionBB/ | C:\MyLocalWorkspaceRoot\YY-BB |
Now you get just the files you want, without clicking through 10 levels of empty directories.