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January 2007 - Posts

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 9:21 PM

One specific cause of ehExtHost crashes that can occur when launching Media Center

A while back, I wrote a blog post describing a scenario where launching Windows Media Center causes a crash dialog to appear with the title ehExtHost. At the time I wrote that post, I had not found any specific add-ins that consistently caused problems.
Posted by astebner | 7 Comments
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 8:35 AM

New MCML development resources - shared source controls project, pivots tutorial and a new blog

Some interesting new Media Center Markup Language (MCML) development resources have been posted over the past few days that I wanted to draw more attention to. Shared source MCML controls project Recently, I heard from Steven Harding (the developer behind
Posted by astebner | 1 Comments
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 6:00 PM

Resolving .NET Framework 2.0 setup error related to the ALLUSERS property

I have heard from a couple of customers who ran into an interesting error while attempting to install the .NET Framework 2.0 on their systems. The error message in the verbose MSI log file looks like the following: MSI (s) (18!84) [14:41:46:857]: Product:
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Monday, January 29, 2007 6:07 PM

mcesoft Vista HTML SDK and Media Center support for Hosted HTML applications in Windows Vista

I just noticed this post on Niall's Big Screen Blog with information about some new applications created by mcesoft for Windows Media Center for Windows Vista. One of these items in particular caught my attention - the mcesoft Vista HTML SDK . This SDK
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Monday, January 29, 2007 4:03 PM

Final version of the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor available for download

With the Windows Vista public launch right around the corner (including the ability to purchase and download Windows Vista via Windows Marketplace on January 30, 2007 ), I wanted to make people aware of a tool that can be used to evaluate how well you
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Saturday, January 27, 2007 7:49 PM

Mailbag: Can I set registry values directly instead of using RegisterMceApp.exe?

Question: I have written a Windows Media Center application, and now I want to create an MSI-based installer for it. I have looked at the WiX-based setup for the Q sample application in this blog post and in the Windows Media Center SDK for Windows Vista
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Friday, January 26, 2007 7:22 PM

Functional overview and screenshots for Media Center sports feature

I found a link today to a post reviewing the new Sports feature in Windows Media Center for Windows Vista that was unveiled at CES 2007 a couple of weeks ago. This post includes a breakdown of the features included in the Sports strip on the Windows Media
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Thursday, January 25, 2007 7:54 PM

.NET Framework 3.0 deployment readme

I recently found an online version of the deployment readme for the .NET Framework 3.0 and I wanted to post a link here to try to make it easier to find in web searches. You can find the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Deployment Readme at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480217.aspx
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 8:59 PM

Updated VC 8.0 runtime redistributable packages are included in Visual Studio 2005 SP1

I posted an item last week that described how to detect the presence of the Visual C++ 8.0 runtime files redistributable packages. Over the weekend, a customer pointed out to me that Visual Studio 2005 SP1 includes modified versions of the VC redist packages.
Posted by astebner | 6 Comments
Tuesday, January 23, 2007 9:27 PM

Converting the Z sample application to use WiX v3.0 and Votive

A little while back, I posted a set of instructions for converting the setup project for the Q podcast sample application that is a part of the Windows Media Center SDK for Windows Vista to use WiX v3.0 and the Votive add-in for Visual Studio 2005. I
Posted by astebner | 3 Comments
Monday, January 22, 2007 5:22 PM

Updated steps for setting the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

A while back, I posted some instructions that can be used to run a post-build script to modify the custom action attributes of an MSI created by the Visual Studio 2005 setup/deployment project wizard. This script is particularly useful to set the necessary
Posted by astebner | 5 Comments
Saturday, January 20, 2007 6:09 PM

Mailbag: How to programatically enumerate installed Media Center applications

Question: I would like to write an application that provides shortcuts to all registered Windows Media Center applications and entry points on the system to allow users to launch them more easily. How can I reliably obtain a list of registered Media Center
Posted by astebner | 2 Comments
Thursday, January 18, 2007 6:03 PM

Online Spotlight has been updated in Windows Media Center for Windows Vista

As several folks have already noted (including Ian Dixon in this blog post and Niall Ginsbourg in this blog post ), systems running Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate now have a refreshed version of Online Spotlight available within Windows Media
Posted by astebner | 1 Comments
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 12:28 PM

Mailbag: How to detect the presence of the VC 8.0 runtime redistributable package

Question: I am building an installer that will include the Visual C++ (VC) 8.0 runtime files redistributable package ( vcredist_x86.exe , vcredist_x64.exe and/or vcredist_ia64.exe ) as a prerequisite. How can I detect whether or not this package is already
Posted by astebner | 7 Comments
Monday, January 15, 2007 4:21 PM

Updated versions of Big Screen Headlines and mceBackup now available for download

I previously posted introductions to 2 Windows Media Center applications for Windows Vista - Niall Ginsbourg's Big Screen Headlines and Ian Dixon's mceBackup v2.0 . Over the weekend, both Niall and Ian have released updated versions of these applications,
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Saturday, January 13, 2007 8:33 AM

Information about Windows Vista Multilingual User Interface (MUI)

I recently found some really useful information about multilingual user interface (MUI) features in Windows Vista, and so I wanted to provide a link here for anyone who does multilingual development or manages multilingual systems deployment. You can
Posted by astebner | 1 Comments
Tuesday, January 09, 2007 7:57 PM

Problems with custom actions that depend on the Visual C++ 8.0 runtime files on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008

I recently heard about a couple of scenarios that were causing problems for folks creating MSI-based setup packages. In one case, the developer was installing a service and attempting to start it using the ServiceControl table, but it failed when running
Posted by astebner | 8 Comments
Sunday, January 07, 2007 1:12 PM

Mailbag: How to launch an EXE from within Windows Media Center

Question: I have written an executable that I want to be able to run as a Windows Media Center application and as a standalone program outside of Media Center. I am able to register the executable with Media Center using RegisterMceApp or RegisterApplication
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Thursday, January 04, 2007 6:36 PM

Why .NET Framework 3.0 language packs will not install correctly on Windows Vista

I previously wrote a blog post describing why the MSI-based .NET Framework 2.0 language packs do not allow installation on Windows Vista, and I also provided an unsupported workaround that allows you to get around the installation block and install them
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Wednesday, January 03, 2007 3:48 PM

MceBackup version 2.0 beta version available for download

Ian Dixon has created a new 2.0 version of his MceBackup tool that supports Windows Media Center in Windows Vista as well as Windows XP Media Center Edition. The new version of the tool requires the .NET Framework 2.0 (which is a part of the OS on Windows
Posted by astebner | 1 Comments
Wednesday, January 03, 2007 8:18 AM

Links to detailed information about Visual Studio 2005 SP1 setup

Heath Stewart has written several very useful blog posts about Visual Studio 2005 SP1 that I wanted to draw everyone's attention to. Some are useful for end users who want to install Visual Studio 2005 SP1, and others are useful for setup developers and
Posted by astebner | 1 Comments
Monday, January 01, 2007 6:47 PM

Why .NET Framework 2.0 language packs will not install correctly on Windows Vista

Michael Kaplan wrote a blog post a while back that described an algorithm for enumerating installed .NET Framework culture information on a computer. While I was away on vacation for the holidays, he posted a follow-up that explains why this algorithm
Posted by astebner | 5 Comments
 
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