The Media Center Sandbox

Hi,

Is there issues running the MCE SDK/MCML stuff with the newly released 5365 build of Vista.? (As per issues with 5342 and 5308 SDK?).. Unfortunately I only have 1 spare machine I can install Vista on and don't want to be stuck again without ability to use the SDK/MCML (as this is the main bit I really all I want to use Vista beta's for at present)?

If there's any way there could be some sort of section/post on this site which tracks Vista Builds vs SDK compatibility that would be much appreciated (to save us all having to ask this question each time a new build comes out)..

thanks (and thanks for setting up this great forum)

Niall / mobilewares

 

I installed 5365 last night, but didn't get chance to install the SDK. Just booting up the machine now to install it (will post in about 30 mins).

Technically you could dual boot the machine. This is what I did so I could still run WinFX on 5308 yet still play with the latest build.

Anyway I will post my report on the new build soon.

I can report that - it fails!

Summary: Tried to install under my own user - install failed saying I required admin permissions but I couldn't select run as admin.

Found reghack on beta newsgroups to display the admin username on the logon screen.

Logon using admin, install worked fine.

Tried to run MCMLPad - failed Tried to run MCE (worked).
Tried to load MCMLPad and the samples from there - failed.

Now i'm thinking I wish I had taken a image of 5342 before wiping it :(
Is this known? Is there a workaround/fix? I keep forgetting it might not work with each build :(

Looks like I will play with this build for a bit more and then goback.

Ben,

Thanks for the heads up on that - saved me a bit of potential grief there... Sounds like i will stick with 5342 for the time being till the SDK is updated (actually I'm currently on holidays in Koh Samui/Thailand - so havent yet had a chance to play with the new SDK as it was released after I left home)..

cheers

Niall

 

Hi Niall,

Aaron is working on an updated SDK installer for that build and should have it up soon on Connect. I'm not sure there is any need to keep a separate compat doc because the SDK will always be tied to a specific build during the beta. Make sense...?

---

Charlie Owen (Microsoft)

Charlie,

Is there any way you guys could get a refresh built (and released on MSDN) for the 5308 build to include the new VS project files (and please don't forget us VB devs...) and the standalone MCML Pad along with the new API info?....

Those of us who only have MSDN subscriptions through our MS partnerships are missing out on all the new kewl stuff you guys are creating. Would be nice to work with since I only have access to 5308.

Charlie:

Hi Niall,

Aaron is working on an updated SDK installer for that build and should have it up soon on Connect. I'm not sure there is any need to keep a separate compat doc because the SDK will always be tied to a specific build during the beta. Make sense...?

Hi -

Yeah that makes perfect sense - and I guess I was still in the MCE2005 mindset where the SDK wasn't so tightly coupled with the RU or interim updates (but appreciate the added complexity of maintaining backward compatibility with betas). Now that I know - I'm happy to hold off on new builds until the SDK catches up (or at least sort out some additional partitions on the test machine so I can keep a MCML ready version at hand).

Perhaps a suggestion to overcome this issue - may be to include MCMLPad (and dependant dll's) in the actual beta builds of Vista as you do with some of the other example games addins (of course you'd probably isolate it for the final release). This way you guys wouldn't have the full overhead of updating the installer/docs for each SDK release - which I imagine is lot more burden on resources (and would allow the developer focused guys like me to keep testing the new builds as they come out without the time lag)..

cheers

Niall

 

Thanks for the suggestion, Niall. MCMLPad.exe is not a feature of the OS, so we can't really make that happen. We are working on a few things which would make our turnaround time of posting updated builds faster so you don't have to wait as long.

---

Charlie Owen (Microsoft)