Note - I originally wrote this post when we released XNA Game Studio 3.0, but the content of this post applies to XNA Game Studio 3.1 as well. 

When the XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta was released a couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post describing the new Windows game deployment features that were added for the beta.  Since then, we have released the final version of XNA Game Studio 3.0.  We made some subtle changes to the Windows deployment features that were introduced in the beta, so instead of updating that older beta blog post, I decided to post a new version of it with updated information that applies to the final release of XNA Game Studio 3.0.

There is also some information about Windows deployment in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 documentation.  This blog post is intended to supplement, not replace, that documentation, so there are some topics I do not cover here because they are already in the documentation.  The best place to get started in the documentation is the Distributing Your Finished Windows Game topic.

Prerequisites for XNA Framework 3.0-based Windows games

Windows games created with XNA Game Studio 3.0 require the following components to be installed in order to run correctly on a system that does not have XNA Game Studio 3.0 installed:

1. The .NET Framework 2.0 or the .NET Framework 3.5 (depending on what version of the .NET Framework you choose to target when creating your game).  The service pack level for the .NET Framework does not matter, so you could also install the .NET Framework 2.0 SP1, 2.0 SP2 or 3.5 SP1 as a prerequisite for your game if you choose to.
2. The XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0
3. Your game binaries and content

Deploying XNA Framework 3.0-based Windows games to other computers

In order to deploy your game to other Windows computers, you need to do one of the following:

1. Ensure that the target computer has all of the necessary prerequisites listed above by asking the end user to install them, then deliver the game as a .zip file or some other file format.  Typically, you will need to package the contents of your \bin\x86\release\ directory and deliver those files to your users.
   
   Note:  XNA Game Studio allows you to create a .ccgame file that is a compressed cab file with some specific metadata embedded in it.  However, the user must have XNA Game Studio installed on their system (and therefore, must also have a Visual Studio product installed since that is a prerequisite for XNA Game Studio) in order to unpack a .ccgame file.  That usually makes the .ccgame file format less than ideal for game redistribution scenarios - it is typically more useful for developer sharing.
   
   
2. Create an installer that will install the prerequisites if needed and then install the game payload.  Typically, the installer will be a Windows Installer .msi file and a bootstrapper .exe that will check the user's system state and install any of the prerequisites that are not yet present on the system.
   
   There are a lot of options available for creating a game installer.  Visual Studio 2008 and Visual C# 2008 Express Edition have built-in support for creating ClickOnce installer packages, and Visual Studio 2008 Professional contains a setup/deployment project type that can be used to create MSI-based installers.  There are also other tools that can be used to create installers - I use WiX when creating my installers for example.

Changes made in XNA Game Studio 3.0 for Windows deployment scenarios

In previous releases of XNA Game Studio, deploying Windows games has been a confusing and error-prone process.  This was partly due to not integrating well with Visual Studio deployment features, and partly due to requiring a relatively long list of prerequisites in order for a game to run correctly on a system that didn't have XNA Game Studio installed.

We have improved the deployment process in XNA Game Studio 3.0 by doing the following:

1. Including the DirectX 9.0c runtime files required for XNA Framework-based games into the XNA Framework redistributable so they do not need to be installed as a separate step anymore.
2. Including the Visual C++ 2005 SP1 runtime files required for XNA Framework-based games into the XNA Framework redistributable so they do not need to be installed as a separate step anymore.
3. Updating the build steps for Windows game projects so they will properly include nested content project output in the ClickOnce publishing output for a Windows game.
4. Creating a Visual Studio bootstrapper package for the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0 that can be included as a prerequisite for ClickOnce-based installers and/or Windows Installer-based installers.
5. Configuring XNA Game Studio 3.0 Windows game projects to have a dependency on the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0 bootstrapper package so that this prerequisite will be included by default when publishing Windows games using ClickOnce.

What is ClickOnce and why hasn't it worked in the past for games?

ClickOnce is an application deployment technology that can be used to publish applications to Web servers or network file shares for simplified installation scenarios.  ClickOnce features have been available in Visual Studio for a couple of versions, but have not worked well with XNA Game Studio for a couple of reasons:

1. In XNA Game Studio 2.0, the output of nested content projects was not included in the ClickOnce publishing output when publishing in Visual Studio.  There are some advanced steps that can be used to work around this, but they require in-depth ClickOnce knowledge and also require running publishing tools outside of Visual Studio (such as mage.exe and mageui.exe).
2. Prerequisites needed to run XNA Framework-based games on computers that do not have XNA Game Studio installed have not been integrated into the Visual Studio publishing process in the past, and the requirements for manually creating installers have been poorly (or worse - inaccurately) documented.

As mentioned above, the issues that used to make ClickOnce deployment a complicated process for XNA Framework-based Windows games has been greatly improved in XNA Game Studio 3.0.

How to publish an XNA Game Studio 3.0 Windows game using ClickOnce

There are a couple of ways to access publishing functionality in Visual C# 2008 Express Edition or Visual Studio 2008.  The following steps will allow you to publish using the default settings for prerequisite packages:

1. Open Visual C# 2008 Express or Visual Studio 2008.
2. Create a new XNA Game Studio 3.0 Windows game project.
3. Click on the Build menu and choose Publish <game> (or right-click on your Windows game project in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer and choose Publish...) - this will launch the Visual Studio Publish Wizard.
4. Specify the publishing output location.
5. Choose the installation mechanism to offer to your users - install from the Web, install from a UNC path or file share, or install from a CD/DVD.
6. Choose whether or not you want to enable automatic updates for your game.
7. Click Finish to publish (which will trigger a build automatically if your build output is out of date).

ClickOnce publishing output

The above steps will produce a publishing output folder that contains the following:

• setup.exe - this is the setup executable for your game, and it contains logic to install prerequisites and then trigger ClickOnce to deploy your game payload
• <game>.application - this is the ClickOnce deployment manifest for your game
• Application Files folder that contains your game payload

The above steps will automatically configure your game to include the .NET Framework 3.5 and the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0 as prerequisites.  It will use the default deployment settings for each of these prerequisites.  This means that setup.exe will detect whether or not the user's system needs the .NET Framework 3.5 and/or the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0, and it will download and install one or both of them if they are missing.

How to configure non-default ClickOnce publishing options

In order to change the default publishing behavior for XNA Game Studio 3.0 Windows game, you can use the following steps:

1. Right-click on your Windows game project in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer and choose Properties.
2. In the property pages, select the Publish tab.
3. Use the Application Files... button to exclude files in your game project from your publishing output.
4. Use the Prerequisites... button to add/remove prerequisite packages or to change how they are packaged (download from the manufacturer's web site, download from the same location as the application, package in a directory along with the game).
   
   The Download prerequisites from the same location as my application option in the Prerequisites dialog will cause your build output to include not only your game binaries and content, but also the installer packages for your prerequisites.  This is useful when creating offline installers that do not require Internet access in order to install correctly.
   
   
5. Use the Updates... button to enable automatic update checking and configure the update details.
6. Use the Options... button to configure other advanced ClickOnce options.
7. Use the Publish Wizard... button to invoke the publishing wizard (the same one that appears if you click on the Build menu and choose Publish <game> in the previous set of steps.
8. Use the Publish Now button to publish using the default publishing settings without stepping through the wizard.

Notes about installing Windows games using ClickOnce

After publishing your game, you can install it on another system by running setup.exe or by running <game>.application (if the target system already has the .NET Framework 2.0 or higher, it will know how to handle the .application file extension).  Any missing prerequisites will be installed, and then your game will be deployed.  Here are a few key notes about this deployment process:

• ClickOnce applications are deployed as per-user application to a randomly-generated folder under the currently logged in user's %LOCALAPPDATA% folder.  This folder is chosen automatically by ClickOnce, and you do not have any control over this location in the publishing process.
• ClickOnce will create a Start menu shortcut for your game.
• ClickOnce will create an Add/Remove Programs entry so that the user can uninstall the game later if they choose to.
• If you choose to include automatic updates for your game, ClickOnce will check for new versions of your game each time the user launches it, and it will deploy new versions if they are available.

Using a setup/deployment project to create a game installer

Visual Studio Professional Edition and higher offers the ability to create MSI-based installers in addition to ClickOnce packages.  Both of these deployment solutions use the same bootstrapper packages for installing prerequisites.  This means you can also use a setup/deployment project in Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition and higher to create an MSI to install your game, and then include the .NET Framework and the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0 as prerequisites.

It is important to note that XNA Game Studio 3.0 does not support automatically adding game or content project output to the setup project (which is normally done by right-clicking the setup project, choosing Add | Project output... and selecting the primary output of the desired project in the Add Project Output Group dialog).  As a result, you will have to manually add the binary files and content files that you want to install as a part of your game to your setup project one-by-one if you choose this option.

Here are steps that you can use to accomplish this:

1. Open Visual Studio 2008 Professional or higher (setup/deployment projects are not available in the Standard or Express Editions).
2. Create a new XNA Game Studio 3.0 Windows game project.
3. Right-click on the solution in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer and choose Add | New Project...
4. Go to Other Project Types | Setup and Deployment and add a Setup Project.
5. Use the File System designer to populate the project with the payload of your game (content plus game binaries).  To do this, right-click on your setup project and choose View | File System.  Then create folders and add files in the desired locations.
6. Right-click on your setup project in the Solution Explorer and choose Properties.
7. Change the Configuration drop down if you want the changes to affect both debug and release builds.
8. Click on the Prerequisites... button to bring up the Prerequisites selection dialog.
9. Scroll to the bottom and check the item named Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0, then click OK.
10. Build your solution.

After a build, your setup project's output directory will contain the following by default:

• setup.exe - this is the setup executable for your game, and it contains logic to install prerequisites and then trigger the installation of your MSI
• <game>.msi - this is the Windows Installer MSI file that contains your game payload

Limitations in Windows game redistribution scenarios in XNA Game Studio 3.0

The above information describes how to create an installer for an XNA Framework-based Windows game.  There are a couple of key scenarios that are not currently possible when deploying a Windows game to a system in this way because the necessary functionality is only installed by XNA Game Studio, not by the XNA Framework Redistributable:

• The Microsoft Games for Windows - LIVE Redistributable package is installed during XNA Game Studio setup, but it is not available for redistribution as a part of a game installer.  A Windows game that attempts to use networking functionality provided by this package on a system without XNA Game Studio installed will encounter a GamerServicesNotAvailableException.

• The Content Pipeline Build Runtime is installed during XNA Game Studio setup, but it is not included in the XNA Framework Redistributable.  Building content at run time (which could be used for things like level editors and game modding engines) is only supported when XNA Game Studio has been installed on the Windows-based development computer.
  
  Note: If you use XNA Game Studio content pipeline extension projects in your games, make sure that you only reference them from your content projects and not from your game project.  If you reference a content pipeline extension project from a game project, that will cause the content pipeline to be required at runtime for your game (and not just at build time), and your game will not work if you deploy it using ClickOnce or a setup/deployment project because the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0 does not include content pipeline binaries.

Behind the scenes details if you are interested

If you are interested in more details, you can see the data files for the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0 bootstrapper package by looking at the folder %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Packages\XnaFxRedist30 on a system with XNA Game Studio 3.0 installed.  We created this bootstrapper package by using the steps in this MSDN document about creating custom bootstrapper packages.

Advanced scenarios

I have written a few supplemental blog posts about the following more advanced Windows game deployment topics:

• How to target the .NET Framework 2.0 instead of the .NET Framework 3.5 when creating a Windows game with XNA Game Studio 3.0
• How to use WiX v3.0 to create an MSI for an XNA Framework 3.0-based Windows game 
• How to create an installer that uses an MSI created with WiX and a bootstrapper created with Visual Studio 2008
• How to create an MSI-based installer for an XNA Game Studio game that integrates with Windows Game Explorer

If you have any suggestions for additional topics, please let me know.

Summary

Windows game packaging and deployment have been consistent pain points since the first version of XNA Game Studio Express.  Hopefully the features that we've added in XNA Game Studio 3.0 will end up being useful in making this process simpler and less error prone.  If you are creating Windows games using XNA Game Studio 3.0, I encourage you to try out the deployment features and let us know if you run into any troubles using these features and/or have any suggestions for further improvements by posting on the forums and/or reporting bugs on the Connect site.

<update date="11/16/2008"> Added information about the XNA Game Studio 3.0 documentation topic about Windows game deployment. </update>

<update date="11/18/2008"> Added a link to the online documentation for XNA Game Studio 3.0 now that it has been published. </update>

<update date="11/21/2008"> Added links to additional blog posts about advanced deployment scenarios that I have written since this post was initially published. </update>

<update date="4/14/2009"> Added a link to a new post I wrote about integrating with Windows Game Explorer. </update>

<update date="8/24/2009"> Added a note about XNA Game Studio 3.1. </update>

As announced today in this news item on the Creators Club site and on this post on the XNA team blog, the final version of XNA Game Studio 3.0 is now available for download.  In addition, a refreshed Creators Club web site has been unveiled, including the ability to submit and peer review games for publication via Xbox LIVE Community Games in the New Xbox Experience.

Important note - if you are planning to submit an Xbox LIVE Community Game and/or participate in the peer review process, you must use XNA Game Studio 3.0 and not any previous version of XNA Game Studio.

Getting started

Here are some links with information about how to download and get started using XNA Game Studio 3.0:

• XNA Game Studio 3.0 download location - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7D70D6ED-1EDD-4852-9883-9A33C0AD8FEE
• XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0 download location - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6521D889-5414-49B8-AB32-E3FFF05A4C50
• Getting started page - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125173
• Readme - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125174
• Reporting bugs or feature suggestions - https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=226

What is new since the XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta?

The XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta represented a feature complete milestone for the XNA Game Studio 3.0 product.  This means that the main differences between the beta and the final release are bug fixes and small fit-and-finish improvements.  The notable exception to this are the following:

1. We have released an updated version of XNA Game Studio Connect, so Creators Club members will be able to deploy and debug their games on an Xbox 360 in the final release.  If you previously deployed Xbox 360 games using XNA Game Studio 2.0 and the old version of XNA Game Studio Connect, you will need to manually delete and re-download XNA Game Studio Connect, as described in this blog post.
2. We have added a new platformer game starter kit to the final release.  You will find a new Platformer Starter Kit project template available in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 node in the Visual Studio 2008 new project dialog.  It will instantiate a game that you can build and deploy to Windows, Xbox 360 and Zune.  The Windows and Xbox 360 projects share high resolution content, and the Zune project includes low resolution content that is appropriate for the Zune device.  There are topics in the documentation that describe how to extend the platformer starter kit to add power ups and a scrolling level.

If you previously had a pre-release version of XNA Game Studio 3.0 installed

If you previously had a pre-release version of XNA Game Studio 3.0 (the CTP or beta) installed, there are a few things you will need to keep in mind:

• You must uninstall the pre-release version prior to installing the final release.  The CTP will be named Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 (CTP) in the Add/Remove Programs control panel, and the beta will be named Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 (Beta).
• Game projects created in the CTP must be manually updated to work in the final release.  If you try to compile a CTP project in the final release, you will get an error.  Item 1.2.3 in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 readme explains how to upgrade your project to resolve this error.
• Game projects created in the beta do not require any updates to work in the final release.
• Games compiled and deployed in the CTP or the beta must be recompiled and redeployed using the final release.  This means that .ccgame packages created with the CTP or beta will need to be re-created.  As noted in this forum post, you will need to clean and rebuild your project (and not simply rebuild it) because there is a file left behind by the build process that does not get removed until you perform a clean or delete the bin and obj directories for your project.

If you encounter XNA Game Studio 3.0 setup failures

If you run into setup failures while installing XNA Game Studio 3.0, it can help to look at the log files created by XNA Game Studio 3.0 setup.  They are located at %temp%\XNA Game Studio 3.0 Setup\Logs.

The best way to get help for setup issues is to gather your log files, upload them to a file server of your choice, and then post a question on the Creators Club general forum that includes a link to your log files.  When doing this, please be sure to search for related issues before posting something because your question may have already been answered.

You can also report setup issues via the Connect site - please include your log files as attachments when doing this.

<update date="10/31/2008"> Added link to a forum post about issues with .ccgame files created in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP or beta. </update>

As a part of PDC 2008, a community technology preview of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 has been released for you to download and try out.  It is available via a Virtual PC image that can be downloaded from this location.

As Rob Mensching noted a while back in this blog post, Visual Studio will be shipping a build of WiX 3.0.  This CTP of VS 2010 includes the 3.0.4325 build of the WiX toolset and the Votive Visual Studio package.  The WiX toolset is installed to the %ProgramFiles%\Visual Studio 2010 Windows Installer XML Toolkit CTP folder in the Virtual PC image.  Bob Arnson posted some more specific details in this blog post about which WiX extensions are and are not included in the VS 2010 CTP.

Some folks on the Visual Studio team are working with the WiX developers to fix bugs in the WiX core toolset and get a version of WiX and Votive ready to ship with Visual Studio 2010.  They have created a feedback forum titled Building and Deploying Applications where you can provide feedback specifically about the WiX development experience in the VS 2010 CTP.  Candy Chiang, the program manager working on WiX integration, has posted an introductory item here.

To summarize the above information, here is a collection of some useful links for the VS 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 CTP and the WiX development features it includes:

• Download location - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=922B4655-93D0-4476-BDA4-94CF5F8D4814 
• VS 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 CTP feedback portal- http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=129231
• Building and Deploying Applications forum - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vs2010ctpdeploy/threads/
• Introductory forum post about using WiX 3.0 in the VS 2010 CTP - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vs2010ctpdeploy/thread/4466d65c-a5bb-4b98-bbca-4321db58e2e0

There has been some early information about Windows 7 presented at PDC 2008 this week.  Of particular interest to me as a former member of the Media Center team is some detailed information about upcoming Windows 7 Media Center features.  Here are a couple of links to some information that Charlie Owen posted on his blog about Media Center end-user features and developer/platform features:

• Summary of new Windows 7 Media Center features - http://blog.retrosight.com/WindowsMediaCenterInThePDCBuildOfWindows7.aspx 
• Summary of new Windows 7 Media Center platform development features - http://blog.retrosight.com/WindowsMediaCenterPlatformInThePDCBuildOfWindows7.aspx

If you're interested in Media Center and/or Media Center development and want to get an early preview of what is planned for Windows 7, I encourage you to check out the information in these posts.

A couple of weeks ago, a Best Practices for Community Games guide was published on the Creators Club web site that provides a list of suggestions to consider when creating Xbox LIVE Community Games using XNA Game Studio 3.0.  You can find this guide at http://creators.xna.com/en-us/education/bestpractices.  You are not required to follow these guidelines when creating your game, but following these guidelines will add polish to your game that will hopefully make it appeal to more users, increase your sales via Xbox LIVE Community Games, etc.

This best practices guide currently includes information about the topics listed below.  It describes things to consider when designing and building your game, and also has links to relevant samples and documentation topics to provide more details and code snippets to help you get started:

• The game just works on any TV
• Trial mode
• Friendly menu system
• Consistent controls
• Audio considerations
• Setting and handling the default controller
• Gamer profiles
• Game representation (thumbnail, screenshots, trailer video, in-game rich presence)
• Seamless loading and saving
• Using Xbox LIVE multi-player features
• Handling special controllers

In addition, Mitch Walker has posted an item on his blog that provides more details about one of the bullet points in the Seamless loading and saving section of the best practices guide.  In his blog post at http://blogs.msdn.com/mitchw/archive/2008/10/15/the-one-about-storage.aspx, he demonstrates how to implement the Guide.BeginShowStorageDeviceSelector API in an asynchronous manner so that your game will not deadlock on systems that have multiple storage devices attached (such as a hard drive and a memory unit).

Last week, I posted some high-level details about a couple of new Visual Studio features that are available in XNA Game Studio 3.0 - cross-platform synchronization and multiple content projects.  Over this past weekend, Stephen Styrchak posted an entry on his blog with much more detailed information about how cross-platform development works in XNA Game Studio 3.0, as well as some tips and tricks to more effectively use Visual Studio 2008 and XNA Game Studio 3.0 for cross-platform game development.

His blog post is at http://badcorporatelogo.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!43EB71B104A2D711!343.entry, and it contains the following types of information:

• Porting your game project to another platform
• Managing code and/or content that is specific to one platform in a multi-platform solution
• Using the Content Root Directory property on a content project to cause build output to go to the same relative location for each platform in your project - this is particularly nice because it allows you to write your code to expect one file name regardless of platform, but to have your build process output high resolution content for Windows/Xbox and low resolution content for Zune behind the scenes
• Working with multi-platform solutions - there are some good tips in here for configuring some Visual Studio settings to make it easier to control what gets built and deployed in your solution
• Making Intellisense work correctly for the platform you are currently developing for

I encourage you to check out Stephen's blog post for more details about all of the above - this post is a great reference if you are planning to use the cross-platform development features in XNA Game Studio 3.0.

Question:

I have an application that installs some .config files that users can customize.  I want to implement a Windows Installer major upgrade to install new versions of my application on systems that have an older version installed.  During the upgrade, I want to keep any customizations that users have made to the .config files instead of replacing them with new versions of the files.

How do I configure a major upgrade so that customized .config files will not be replaced during the upgrade process?

Answer:

The first thing to keep in mind is that a Windows Installer major upgrade is simply an install operation and an uninstall operation combined into a single installation session.  Whether or not .config files get replaced depends on how you author the information in your MSI.

There are a couple of key things you need to do to enable this behavior:

1.  Place each .config file in its own component and mark the .config file as the key path of the component.

Doing this will ensure that Windows Installer will use unversioned file replacement logic when deciding whether or not to replace this file in the install of your new version.  The high-level summary is that Windows Installer will compare the creation time of the component's key path file with the last modified time if both the old and new versions of the file are unversioned.  If they differ, then Windows Installer assumes the user has modified it and it will not replace it.

2.  Schedule the RemoveExistingProducts action in the new version of your MSI after the InstallFiles action.

Doing this will make sure that the new versions of all of your components are installed before removing the old version of your MSI.  When the new versions are installed in this sequence, your components will have their reference counts incremented to 2, but the .config files will not be replaced unless they are unmodified (because of the unversioned file replacement logic described in item 1 above).  Then, when the old version of your MSI is uninstalled afterwards during the RemoveExistingProducts action, the reference counts will be decremented back to 1, but the files will not be removed the system because the reference counts are not yet 0.

If you schedule RemoveExistingProducts before InstallFiles, then the uninstall of your old version will cause the component reference counts to reach 0, and the files will be removed from disk.  When the new versions of your components are installed afterwards, the files will be replaced with the new versions.  This will cause your users to lose any customizations they have made to their .config files.

The .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and SP2 are implemented as major upgrades of the original version of the .NET Framework 2.0.  It has the same requirement of keeping any customizations the user has made to .config files.  The .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and SP2 installer schedules RemoveExistingProducts in the following specific order because otherwise, it would encounter an ICE63 warning:

• InstallExecute
• RemoveExistingProducts
• InstallFinalize

There was an announcement on the XNA team blog earlier this week about a couple of upcoming release dates, and I wanted to mention them here as well:

• The final version of XNA Game Studio 3.0 will be available for download on October 30, 2008
• The New Xbox Experience (with Xbox LIVE Community Games) will be available on November 19, 2008

Xbox LIVE Community Games will require games that are created with XNA Game Studio 3.0, so make sure to download the final release when it is available on October 30th to get your game ready to submit for peer review and publishing.  Keep in mind that you can start with an XNA Game Studio 2.0 project for Xbox 360 and upgrade it to 3.0 after it releases.  Check out this blog post for more information about XNA Game Studio project upgrade scenarios.

A couple of new cumulative update package for Windows Media Center have been released this week.

The first is an update for Windows Vista Media Center that is called the October 2008 Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista and is also known as KB955519.  It is available for download in x86 and x64 versions.  It can be installed on systems running the original version of Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate Editions and the SP1 version of Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate Editions.  This update includes all fixes previously included in the June 2008 Cumulative Update and some additional fixes described in the knowledge base article linked below.  Notably, this update fixes a regression introduced in the June 2008 update that caused playback to resume if it was paused and then the screen saver started.

The second is an update that is called the Cumulative Update for Media Center TV Pack for Windows Vista and is also known as KB956147.  It is available for download in x86 and x64 versions.  It can only be installed on systems that include the Media Center TV Pack for Windows Vista.

Here are some links for the October 2008 Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista:

• Knowledge base article - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955519
• Download location for x86 package - http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/e/2/fe2b2496-3546-4fc6-affa-5f74dde75dd8/Windows6.0-KB955519-x86.msu
• Download location for x64 package - http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/5/68509832-314c-4844-b592-ceac8b4913e8/Windows6.0-KB955519-x64.msu

Here are some links for the Cumulative Update for Media Center TV Pack for Windows Vista:

• Knowledge base article - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956147
• Download location for x86 package - http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/2/9/3293FF56-3270-4FFC-82B0-2E0BB5317111/MCETVPack-Windows6.0-KB956147-x86.msu
• Download location for x64 package - http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/C/C/CCCE75F8-7815-42EE-A490-C9FEDCA812CF/MCETVPack-Windows6.0-KB956147-x64.msu

Right after the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 shipped, I updated the .NET Framework cleanup tool and the .NET Framework setup verification tool to support the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2, the .NET Framework 3.0 SP2 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.

I updated both of these tools on my file servers back then, but didn't announce the updates via posts on my blog.  However, I've gotten several questions about support for the components of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 in these tools since then, so I decided that I should post something to give folks a heads up.

Here are links to more information about each of these tools:

• .NET Framework cleanup tool
• .NET Framework setup verification tool

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 shipped with a bootstrapper package for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.  This bootstrapper package can be used with ClickOnce and setup/deployment projects to install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 as a prerequisite before installing your application.

This past week, new VS 2008 bootstrapper packages were released for the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and the .NET Framework 3.0 SP2.  The 2.0 SP2 and 3.0 SP2 versions of the .NET Framework are installed as prerequisites during .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 setup, but they were not previously available as standalone bootstrapper packages.

Here are some links for the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and 3.0 SP2 bootstrapper packages for VS 2008:

• Download location
• Additional Bootstrapper Packages help topic on MSDN

There are a few caveats to keep in mind when using the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and 3.0 SP2 bootstrapper packages:

• They only support installing on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.  You cannot use them on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.  If you need to install the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 or 3.0 SP2 on Vista or Windows Server 2008 as a part of your application installer, you should use the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 bootstrapper package that is included with Visual Studio 2008 SP1 instead.
• They do not support the "Download components from the component vendor's web site." option.  This means when you build your installer and include one of these bootstrapper packages, you will see build warnings about the HomeSite attribute, and the full contents of the .NET Framework 2.0 SP2 and/or 3.0 SP2 installers will be included next to setup.exe in your build output.  If you would prefer to have download-on-demand functionality for the .NET Framework in your setup, then you should use the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 bootstrapper package instead.

There are a couple of new features that have been added in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta that are intended to improve the development experience in Visual Studio that I want to briefly introduce.  If you have a chance, I encourage you to download the XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta and give it a try.  Please let us know if you find any bugs or have any feedback about the features described below or any of the other features in the product by using the Connect site.

Multiple Content Projects

In XNA Game Studio 2.0, the concept of a content project was introduced.  However, each game project was limited to a single content project, which meant that sharing content between games required some additional work (such as creating a game library and including that library in each game project that you wanted to use the shared content in).

In XNA Game Studio 3.0, it is now possible to add and remove content projects directly within a game project.  This allows you to include multiple content projects into your game project.  You can do all of the following:

1. Add a new content project - to do this, click on your game project in the Visual Studio solution explorer, then click on the Visual Studio Project menu and choose Add New Content Project...Alternatively, you can right-click on your game project in the solution explorer, choose Add, then New Content Project...You will be prompted to provide a unique name, and an additional content project node will be added to your game project.
2. Add an existing content project - to do this, click on your game project in the Visual Studio solution explorer, then click on the Visual Studio Project menu and choose Add Existing Content Project...Alternatively, you can right-click on your game project in the solution explorer, choose Add, then Existing Content Project...You will be prompted to browse to the location of the .contentproj file that you want to add, and it will be added to your game project.  Note that each content project must have a unique name.
3. Remove a content project - to do this, right-click on your content project in the Visual Studio solution explorer and choose Remove.

There are several possible uses for this feature.  Here are a couple of examples:

• Creating a content project that contains assets that you intend to share across multiple games.  For example, you may have a set of terrain assets that you want to group together into a content project and then include in multiple games so they will have the same backgrounds and look-and-feel and so you can make changes to the assets in a central location.
• More easily managing cross-platform projects that target Windows, Xbox 360 and Zune.  The Zune has a smaller screen resolution and more restrictive memory requirements (described in more detail here), so you could create a Zune-specific low resolution content project, a Windows + Xbox 360 high resolution content project, and a common shared content project in order to manage game assets in this type of scenario.  There is a topic in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 documentation that describes how to configure a cross-platform project in this way - it is located under XNA Game Studio 3.0 | Using XNA Game Studio | Developing Cross-Platform Games | How To: Create a Cross-Platform Game Solution in the help table of contents.

Cross-Platform Synchronization

XNA Game Studio has a feature that allows you to create a game project for one platform (Windows, Xbox 360 or Zune) and then create a copy of that project for one of the other supported platforms.  Behind the scenes, a new .csproj file is created to represent the game for the new platform, and the appropriate changes are made to the .csproj file so references, pre-processor definitions, etc will be configured correctly for the new platform.

When you create a copy of a project for another platform, it will automatically be populated with the same code and content that existed in the original project at the time the copy was made.  However, in previous versions of XNA Game Studio, any future additions, removals or renames to items in one of the projects would cause it to get out of sync with the other project.  Stephen Styrchak posted some information a while ago on his blog about an add-in he wrote to automatically synchronize cross-platform projects in XNA Game Studio 2.0.

Starting in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta, we have included built-in support for cross-platform synchronization that is similar to Stephen's add-in.  After creating a game project and then creating one or more cross-platform copies, XNA Game Studio 3.0 will automatically synchronize item additions and renames that occur in any of the projects in the cross-platform group.

It is important to note here that XNA Game Studio 3.0 will only synchronize projects that are in the same solution and are part of a "cross-platform group."  This means that the projects have to have been added to the solution by creating copies of an existing game project as opposed to by using the Add New Project or Add Existing Project options in Visual Studio.  You can tell whether or not 2 .csproj files are a part of the same cross-platform group by looking at the metadata in the project files.  Every XNA Game Studio project should have a property named <XnaCrossPlatformGroupID> that is set to a GUID value.  Projects that are a part of the same cross-platform group will have identical <XnaCrossPlatformGroupID> values in their .csproj files.

My colleague Michael Klucher posted some screenshots and details on his blog about the new version of XNA Game Studio Connect that will be released along with the final release of XNA Game Studio 3.0.  You can find Michael's blog post at http://klucher.com/blog/the-new-xna-game-studio-connect/. 

There is some important information in his post for current XNA Creators Club members who are using XNA Game Studio 2.0 to deploy games to their Xbox 360s.  The upcoming updated version of XNA Game Studio Connect will replace the 2.0 version of XNA Game Studio Connect, and you will use it to deploy games created with both XNA Game Studio 2.0 and XNA Game Studio 3.0.

Unfortunately, there are some manual steps you will have to take if you already have the 2.0 version of XNA Game Studio Connect in order to download and use the new 3.0 version.  At a high level, you will need to do the following (note - there is a more detailed set of steps to accomplish these tasks in Michael's blog post):

1. Delete the 2.0 version of XNA Game Studio Connect - this can be done from the Games Library or the Memory blade in the Xbox 360 dashboard
2. Download the new 3.0 version of XNA Game Studio Connect - this can be done from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace when you are logged in with an account that has an active XNA Creators Club membership associated with it

Once the 3.0 version of XNA Game Studio Connect is released, the 2.0 version will be updated to display a single screen that contains a set of instructions similar to the ones on Michael's blog so that you will know that you need to update it in order to continue deploying games to your Xbox 360.  In addition, the 2.0 version will no longer be available on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace once the 3.0 version is released, so there will hopefully not be any confusion about what you need to download.