Over the past week or so, I’ve posted updated versions of both the .NET Framework Cleanup Tool and the .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool.  The primary reason for the updates is to address some specific problems using the tools on Windows 7.  I also fixed a few other issues that customers reported to me or that I discovered in my own testing.

Here is a list of the changes made to each of the tools:

.NET Framework Cleanup Tool changes (July 24, 2009):

• Added logic to correctly cleanup the .NET Framework on Windows 7.  The .NET Framework 2.0 SP2, 3.0 SP2 and 3.5 SP1 are all installed as OS components on Windows 7, so the cleanup tool will not allow you to remove these versions of the .NET Framework on this OS.
• Added detection and logging for the .NET Framework 4.  The cleanup tool does not yet support cleaning up the .NET Framework 4.  This will be added in a future release.
• Prevent cleanup of mscoree.dll on Vista and higher.

.NET Framework Setup Verification Tool changes (July 17, 2009)

• Fixed false errors being reported for non-English versions of the .NET Framework 1.0.
• Fixed filtering problem that caused the .NET Framework 1.0 to be removed from the list of available products if any 1.0 service packs are installed.
• Fixed false errors being reported for the .NET Framework 1.1 if the .NET Framework 1.0 is also installed on the system.
• Fixed false errors being reported for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 on Windows 7.
• Added detection and logging for .NET Framework 4 and Windows 7.  The verification tool does not yet support verifying the .NET Framework 4.  This will be added in a future release.

User’s Guides and Download Links

Here are links to the user’s guides for each of the tools – there are links in each user’s guide that can be used to download the latest version of each tool:

• .NET Framework Cleanup Tool User’s Guide - http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/pages/8904493.aspx
• .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool User’s Guide - http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/pages/8999004.aspx

As always, please let me know (by posting a comment on one of my blog posts or sending me an email) if you run into any issues or have any questions using either of these tools.

The XNA Creators Club web site was taken down today, and now it is back up with several changes.  Here are some of the highlights:

• The name of Xbox LIVE Community Games is now officially Xbox LIVE Indie Games
• You can now submit games Xbox LIVE Indie Games created with XNA Game Studio 3.1
• To go along with the release of the Japanese version of XNA Game Studio 3.1, there is now a Japanese version of the Creators Club web site (including Japanese forums), and Japanese creators can now submit Xbox LIVE Indie Games
• There is now a German version of the Creators Club web site and German creators can now submit Xbox LIVE Indie Games
• Creators in all supported regions can now submit Xbox LIVE Indie Games for the Japanese, German, Singapore and Swedish Xbox LIVE Marketplaces
• Consumers will automatically be notified when they run an Xbox LIVE Indie Game and an updated version of the game has been published
• Creator reputation is now displayed on the Creators Club site.  You can see some of this information directly in your creator card
• Creators get 50 tokens they can use to give out copies of their game to reviewers, friends, etc.
• Xbox LIVE Indie Games price points are now 80, 240 and 400 points instead of 200, 400 and 800 points

I encourage you to check out the Creators Club site to see the above changes in action.

Since the release of XNA Game Studio 3.1, we have posted a few samples (described here and here) to help you get started using Avatars in your game.  This week, as announced first on Dean Johnson’s blog, we’ve released an additional Avatar sample along with some utilities to make it easier to create and consume custom Avatar animations in your game.

Here is some additional information and download links for these new samples and utilities:

• Custom Avatar Animation Sample - http://creators.xna.com/sample/customavataranimation - This sample shows users how to import, process and play custom Avatar animations though the XNA Framework content pipeline.
• Avatar Animation Rig - http://creators.xna.com/utility/avataranimationrig – This link provides model and animation rigs for Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 and Maya 2008 that can be used to create custom animations.
• Avatar Animation Pack - http://creators.xna.com/utility/avataranimationpack - This pack contains 21 new animations that can be consumed in XNA Game Studio 3.1 games.  Examples of the animations in this pack include Jump, Climb, Crawl, Kick, etc.  The animations are available in FBX format for direct use in your games or in source format for both Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 and Maya 2008.

Now that WiX v3.0 has officially released, you may want to start looking at upgrading your existing setup authoring from WiX v2.0 to WiX v3.0 to take advantage of some of the new WiX v3.0 features.  There are some breaking changes in v3.0, so you cannot simply re-use the same WiX source files from v2.0 with the v3.0 toolset.  Fortunately, there is a tool named WixCop in the WiX v3.0 toolset that will allow you to migrate v2.0 .wxs files to v3.0.

Rob Mensching wrote a helpful post on his blog last week that introduces WixCop and explains steps that you can use to run WixCop and then update your build scripts to pass in the new WiX extensions that were added in WiX v3.0 so your builds will work correctly.

You can find Rob’s blog post at http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2009/7/7/Tips-on-how-to-upgrade-from-WiX-v2-to-WiX-v3.  If you’ve got a WiX v2.0 project that you’re planning to upgrade to WiX v3.0, I encourage you to take a look at Rob’s blog post before you get started with the upgrade project because it will save you a lot of manual migration effort.

To summarize that blog post, there are 3 main migration steps:

1. Run %ProgramFiles%\Windows Installer XML v3\bin\WixCop.exe -s –f *.wxs to convert your existing WiX v2.0 source files
   
   This step assumes that you have WiX v3.0 installed to the default path and that you are running from the directory that your WiX v2.0 source files are located.  You may need to adjust it as appropriate on your system.
   
   
2. Add -ext command line switches and pass in the WiX v3.0 extensions used by your setup authoring when you run candle.exe and light.exe in your build process.
   
   The easiest way to figure out what extensions you need to pass in for your builds is to try to build and observe any errors you receive related to unhandled extension elements.
   
   
3. If you use WixUI in your WiX v2.0 projects, update your light.exe command line to use the -ext command line switch to pass in the WixUIExtension instead of linking to wixui.wixlib.

There may be a few migration issues that are not handled by WixCop, but the above steps should get you most of the way there.  Hopefully, the error messages you encounter for any issues not handled by WixCop will be useful enough to lead you to the right solution.  If not, then the WiX user group is a great resource, and so is the WiX v3.0 documentation.

Last night, the XNA Game Studio team released a Japanese version of XNA Game Studio 3.1 and the XNA Framework Redistributable 3.1.  The Japanese news release announcing these products is located at http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/press/release/20090709.htm.

Here are some links to help you get started if you want to use the Japanese version of XNA Game Studio 3.1:

• Japanese XNA Game Studio 3.1 download
• Japanese XNA Framework Redistributable 3.1 download
• Japanese XNA Game Studio 3.1 documentation
• Creators Club Japanese Landing Page
• XNA Game Studio 3.1 Japanese Readme

One thing to keep in mind here – it is only supported to install one language of XNA Game Studio 3.1 on your computer at a time.  If you already have the English version of XNA Game Studio 3.1 installed, setup will block you if you try to install the Japanese version afterwards (and vice versa).  You will need to uninstall the English version of XNA Game Studio 3.1 and then install the Japanese version if you prefer to use the Japanese version.

Over this past weekend, the 3.0.5419 build of WiX v3.0 was declared the final production build.  If you are using any builds of WiX v3.0 for your projects, I strongly encourage you to update to the 3.0.5419 build at this time.

Here is some additional information about WiX v3.0 and the final 3.0.5419 build:

• WiX 3.0.5419 build download locations - http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.0.5419.0/ or https://sourceforge.net/projects/wix/files/
• WiX v3.0 online documentation - http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix3/main.htm
• Rob Mensching’s announcement about the release of the final version of WiX v3.0 - http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2009/7/4/WiX-v3.0-released
• Bob Arnson’s announcement - http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/07/04/wix-v3-0-has-been-released/
• WiX site on SourceForge – http://wix.sourceforge.net