Aaron Stebner's WebLog
Thoughts about setup and deployment issues, WiX, XNA, the .NET Framework and Visual Studio
This is the last week that you can submit an Xbox LIVE Indie Game created with XNA Game Studio 3.1
As noted on the XNA Game Studio team blog and this App Hub news item, the deadline for submitting...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 01/31/2011
Likely final build of WiX v3.5 is now available to download
Rob Mensching announced on his blog yesterday that the build that is likely to be the final build of...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 01/20/2011
Link to XNA Game Studio 4.0 book written by 2 of my co-workers
I’m a little late posting this information since the book was released at the end of December, 2010,...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 01/19/2011
Link to a guide to help fix breaking changes after upgrading a game from XNA Game Studio 3.1 to 4.0
XNA Game Studio 4.0 and the XNA Framework 4.0 introduced several breaking API changes. They...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 01/13/2011
Possible issue where .NET Framework 4 setup reports success but fails to update mscoree.dll behind the scenes
I have heard from a few customers since the release of the .NET Framework 4 who have installed the...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 12/29/2010
Mailbag: Should I re-install the versions of the .NET Framework in a specific order?
Question: I used the instructions and the cleanup tool in this blog post to remove all versions of...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 12/22/2010
Link to information about using isolated storage APIs in an XNA Game Studio Windows game
My colleague Shawn Hargreaves wrote a helpful blog post last week that gives more detailed...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 12/20/2010
Link to a tool to simplify the process of localizing the title of a Windows Phone game
A little while ago, I wrote a blog post with a list of steps that you can use to create native...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 12/10/2010
WiX v3.5 escrow build is now available to download
Rob Mensching announced on his blog last week that WiX v3.5 is now in escrow mode, which means that...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 12/01/2010
Steps I use to narrow down the root cause of an XNA Game Studio setup failure
Earlier this week, a co-worker ran into an error while installing XNA Game Studio on his computer,...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 11/12/2010
Xbox LIVE Indie Games pipeline is now accepting XNA Game Studio 4.0 games
As noted on the XNA Game Studio team blog today, the Xbox LIVE Indie Games publishing pipeline is...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 11/08/2010
Steps to install XNA Game Studio 4.0 without using the setup bootstrapper
A while back, I wrote a blog post describing how to extract the contents of the XNA Game Studio 2.0,...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 11/05/2010
Xbox LIVE Indie Games pipeline will start accepting XNA Game Studio 4.0 games at the end of this week
Last month, there was an item posted on the XNA Game Studio team blog with a rough timeline for when...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 11/03/2010
Windows Phone Developer Tools October 2010 Update is now available for download
As announced earlier this week in this post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, the Windows Phone...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/27/2010
XNA Game Studio 4.0 Japanese language pack now available for download
At the end of last week, the XNA Game Studio team released the XNA Game Studio 4.0 Japanese language...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/26/2010
Mailbag: How to perform a silent install of the Visual C++ 2010 redistributable packages
Question: You previously posted lists of command line switches to perform silent and unattended...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/20/2010
French, German, Italian and Spanish versions of Windows Phone Developer Tools now available for download
At the end of last week, the French, German, Italian and Spanish versions of the Windows Phone...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/18/2010
Link to more information about support for XNA Game Studio 4.0 in the Xbox LIVE Indie Games publishing pipeline
There was an item posted on the XNA Game Studio team blog today that I wanted to link to in order to...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/12/2010
How to localize the title of a Windows Phone game created with XNA Game Studio 4.0
Note - there is now a simpler set of steps to create a game with a localized title, and I have...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/11/2010
Be careful about how you use Guide.IsTrialMode in an XNA Game Studio 4.0 game for Windows Phone
My colleague Michael Klucher posted an item on his blog earlier this week that I wanted to link to...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/08/2010
XNA Game Studio 4.0 sample content is now available directly within Visual Studio 2010
In past releases, we have published XNA Game Studio developer education content on the Creators Club...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/05/2010
What XNA Game Studio 4.0 functionality works in what version of Visual Studio and on what version of Windows
Since XNA Game Studio 4.0 and the Windows Phone Developer Tools shipped a couple of weeks ago,...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/01/2010
Configuring and testing icon images in XNA Game Studio 4.0 Windows Phone games
Michael Klucher wrote a blog post earlier this week that included some information about Windows...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 10/01/2010
Steps to upgrade an XACT project so it can be used with XNA Game Studio 4.0
If you have an XNA Game Studio 3.1 project that includes an XACT audio project and plan to upgrade...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 09/23/2010
XNA Game Studio Connect beta for XNA Game Studio 4.0 now available for download
Last week, we released XNA Game Studio 4.0 and the Windows Phone Developer Tools. However,...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 09/21/2010
How to fix compatibility mode error that can appear when installing Windows Phone Developer Tools or Visual Studio 2010
I have heard from a few people who tried to install the final release of the Windows Phone Developer...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 09/17/2010
How to reset the default deployment target in Windows Phone Developer Tools to the emulator
A few folks have noticed that after uninstalling pre-release builds of the Windows Phone Developer...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 09/17/2010
Assembly references in XNA Game Studio 4.0 beta projects need to be updated after installing the final release
Since we released the final version of the Windows Phone Developer Tools and XNA Game Studio 4.0,...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 09/17/2010
Final versions of Windows Phone Developer Tools and XNA Game Studio 4.0 now available for download
As announced on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, the final release of the Windows Phone Developer...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 09/16/2010
The final release of XNA Game Studio 4.0 is coming soon
Many folks noticed the recent post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog that announced a September...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 09/08/2010
New knowledge base article with detection information for all versions of the .NET Framework
Microsoft has posted an updated knowledge base article today with a unified list of install state...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 08/05/2010
Possible workarounds for XNA Game Studio setup errors caused by XnaLiveProxy
Every once in a while, I hear from a customer on the Creators Club forums or via my blog who cannot...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 08/03/2010
Installing offline documentation for Windows Phone Developer Tools
The Windows Phone Developer Tools CTPs and Beta have only offered online documentation for general...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 07/19/2010
Link to a survey about the .NET Framework 4 setup and deployment experience
Peter Marcu has posted a new survey on his blog that I wanted to link to here in order to try to...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 07/17/2010
Possible issues uninstalling the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh and installing the RTW version
Note - I originally wrote this blog post when the Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta was released,...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 07/12/2010
Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta and XNA Game Studio 4.0 Beta now available for download
As announced on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, a Windows Phone Developer Tools (WPDT) Beta (which...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 07/12/2010
Possible installation problems with .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 hotfixes that can remove assemblies from the GAC
A couple of new knowledge base articles related to failed installations of .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 07/02/2010
Link with information about expert settings in Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
If you have used previous versions of XNA Game Studio, particularly if you do cross-platform game...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 06/15/2010
Possible problem installing Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh on a system with Silverlight 4 installed
Yesterday, I investigated a Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh installation issue on a...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 06/05/2010
How to create an administrative install point for the .NET Framework 4
I previously wrote a blog post listing the silent install, repair and uninstall command line...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 06/04/2010
Updated versions of .NET Framework cleanup and verification tools that work with the .NET Framework 4
Over the past week or so, I finally found some time to update the .NET Framework cleanup and...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 05/13/2010
Silent install, repair and uninstall command lines for the .NET Framework 4
I have previously posted command lines that can be used to install, repair and uninstall the...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 05/12/2010
Offline install options for the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh
I have heard from a few folks who have had trouble getting the web download bootstrapper for the...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 05/06/2010
Mailbag: How to detect the presence of the Visual C++ 2010 redistributable package
Question: I have seen your previous blog posts that describe how to detect the presence of the...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 05/05/2010
How to install the Windows Phone Developer Tools on Windows Server 2008
The Windows Phone Developer Tools are not officially supported on operating systems other than...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 05/02/2010
Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh and XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP Refresh now available for download
As announced on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, a Windows Phone Developer Tools (WPDT) CTP Refresh...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 04/29/2010
Updated sample .NET Framework detection code that works with the final version of the .NET Framework 4
Now that the final version of the .NET Framework 4 has been released, I have posted updated versions...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 04/18/2010
Link to updated information about .NET Framework 4 setup and deployment improvements
Now that the final versions of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4 have shipped, Peter Marcu...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 04/17/2010
Links to .NET Framework 4 deployment guides
The official .NET Framework 4 deployment guides for application developers and system administrators...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 04/15/2010
A note about Visual Studio 2010 and the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP
As I noted in my previous blog post, the final versions of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework...
Author: Aaron Stebner Date: 04/13/2010