Genetic Algorithms that is: I've been toying with the ideas related to adaptive "AI".  The basic idea is:  If you could play a game where the content is adaptive, the game would seem "fresh" longer and you would have more...

So It’s been nearly four years at Microsoft here for me.  I’ve had a great tenure working on VSTO, but as time moves and things change, so must we.  About a month ago a very interesting opportunity arose that I could not pass up, it has caused...

As we start to see that hazy object that is the “next version” of VSTO coalesce into an actual shippable project, my time and topics of interest have had a chance to increase again.  One of the things current on my mind is “servicing”, specifically...

I’m going to diverge a bit off the VSTO path and talk about a more generic ClickOnce story. If you have used ClickOnce in VS 2008 or VS 2005 you may be somewhat familiar with partial trust scenarios and the idea of permission sets. If you do not care...

It's been a while, I'm not really interested in going to the details of why at the moment, lets dig right into the topic. Generally I focus on more of the technical aspects of what you can do without really talking much about some of the other considerations...

I'm not going to go into detail about everything in the VS 2008 SP1 package, but what I would like to point out some key deployment features that were added and why you would want to consider installing even if you have a large user base using a base...

It's been quiet.  I've been super busy with a lot of things.  Some things I can talk about and mostly things I can't.  What I can talk about:  I went to PAX this last weekend.  PAX (also known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a big convention...

In my last post I talked about the first steps to building my Customer Prerequisite.  In it, I built an MSI that would display a message box during the install phase. Here is what Setup1looks like when you run it: It's nothing too ingenious but it...

In January I talked about using Custom Prerequisites to add a little more specialization to the VSTO ClickOnce experience.  I didn't go too much in depth into this and I've since seen a few comments crop up about them in some of the VSTO community...

For the past couple of months I have been avoiding talking too much on this blog about about creating "Windows Installer" deployments of VSTO.  I've been avoiding it because we've been working on writing a well-formed paper on how to do...

It's been a while since I've posted here, I'm not quite ready to jump back into pushing deployment stuff again, I have had other things on my plate (vacation being one of them) and am finding less time to tackle the interesting questions that are coming...

I got ahead of myself and thought it was one week later than it really is (sort of good because I was beginning to think I was a lot further behind than I was).  I will be out next week.   Unfortunately this week has been super crazy. ...

Last week I had the pleasure of getting some very interesting feedback from some of the Microsoft Office development audience (people who develop against office through VSTO/VSTA/VBA/Shared Add-ins/etc ).  If you were at said event and are now reading...

  Last Week I talked about user-generated updates and the Click-Once Deployment Management API's.  Based on some internal feedback and a large degree of personal interest, I'm going to come right back around to the same topic, but with a cleaner...

Before I go any further in this post I'm going to put a huge disclaimer:  You should be warned what I'm about to cover has not been fully tested, is clearly not supported or recommended and may have significant impact on your application's ability...

I was planning to post something about 3 days ago but things have been a little crazy on the home front (lets just say that 'the games' have been playing me these days) and a lot crazy on the work front (can't talk about it exactly, but it's been good...

From time to time I will come across (via various channels) a question of why VSTO 3.0 requires the 3.5 framework. Usually these questions are prefaced or suffixed with a “in VSTO 2005 SE I was able to use 2.0, why are you making me use 3.5 now?” Just...

Memory is king and he who remembers the most rules will rule the most (not a real quote but it sounds interesting). Anyway, it is very easy to create "widget" apps with VSTO that "do" something, but often where the really interesting projects come into...

Just a micro update: Ade Miller has an excellent post on how to delay sign vsto dll's. You can see his blog entry here . Basically he is talking about building the solution and Signing the dll's and then re-signing the manifests. If you or your company...

Generally I talk about vsto deployment here, this is mainly due to the simple limitation that what I work on and know best is deployment. In my average day when I am "doing my thing" to improve the product I generally am working on stuff around how files...

I have some excellent news for any VSTO developers out there. We've released the first set of Power Tools. You can read more about them here and you can get them from here . Andrew Whitechapel's blog entry covers the tools at pretty good length. If you...

I'm not prepared to talk about anything interesting this week. I've been busy with several things going on and haven't had time to do the neccasary thought and investigation. On a side note though, my team is hiring looking for new Testers and Developers...

The other day I was in a meeting and it was mentioned that the new VSTO Deployment model didn't really support a "push" model. I've thought about this for a while and I have to disagree and agree. In software development "supporting" is really more of...

Because of the complexity and depth that installation stories can have it seems like it is very easy to get a little confused with terminology and how it maps to actual real world things. Additionally it seems like the varied nature of installation and...

I haven't talked much about what I do here at Microsoft. To be honest I'm not going to go too far into any details about what I am doing but I think it'll be okay to talk about what I did do (up until we shipped VSTO 2008). I am and SDET which basically...