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I'm guessing that many of you have attempted to download the latest version of Windows Live Messenger or other Windows Live Software but have been prompted with the following error:

"Sorry, Windows Live programs cannot be installed on Windows Server, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or Windows operating systems earlier than Windows XP Service Pack 2."

You're not alone, as I have received the same error when trying to install the latest version on Windows Server 2008 64bit.

The folks at Microsoft included support in the installer for all operating systems during the Windows Live beta(s). However when Messenger 8.5 went RTM, they removed support for all of the operating systems mentioned above. Many are outraged that Microsoft took this stance because they supported it while it was in beta, and then launch and say we don't support it and won't ever support it.

"A special note for those of you running Messenger 8.5 Beta on Windows XP 64-bit or Windows 2003 Server: the final version of Messenger 8.5 will not install or run on your OS. We don’t want you to get stuck out in the cold so you will not receive the mandatory upgrade to the final version. However, these operating systems won’t be supported by future Messenger versions. You may stay on your current beta version, or to get to a more stable final version we recommend that you uninstall Messenger 8.5 and go back to Messenger 8.1." ( Windows Live Messenger Blog ).

Many are wishing Microsoft would remove this limitation from the Windows Live installer. For more information visit the messengergeek blog.

Luckily there is an easy work around to installing Windows Live on Windows 64bit operating systems and Windows Server operating systems if you have a 32bit windows operating system available. Just follow the steps below and you will be up and running in a few minutes with the latest version of Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Writer and various other Windows Live programs.

1. Download the installer on your 32bit Windows machine from http://get.live.com. Note: I used Windows XP Service pack 3.
2. Run the Installer (WLinstaller.exe). Note: It will download and install the latest version of Windows Live onto your machine.
   
3. Go to the following folder(C:\Program Files\Common Files\WindowsLiveInstaller\MsiSources or C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\WindowsLiveInstaller\MsiSources\).
4. Copy or email the executables of the various Windows Live programs installers to your Windows 64bit or Windows Server operating system. Below is a list of applications names that correspond to the filename (diTii.com ).

Windows Live Writer
Install_{1F973A7F-3FE4-4D11-A9A2-E869C2899A7D}.msi
Windows Live Messenger
Install_{508CE775-4BA4-4748-82DF-FE28DA9F03B0}.msi
Windows Live Sign-In Assistant
Install_{CB5EA99C-8A5B-49F2-9A1A-2EF78BE4DB41}.msi
Windows Live Mail
Install_{EDB619FD-4E71-403C-8E99-DFC9CF9DD345}.msi
Windows Live Toolbar
Install_{C6876FE6-A314-4628-B0D7-F3EE5E35C4B4}.msi
Windows Live Photo Gallery
Install_{AA436FBD-2595-479B-8DDE-E9C36F50D99D}.msi

1. Finally install the above msi's onto your machine. You should now be on the latest and greatest version of your favorite software.

The .netTiers team released .netTiers 2.3.0 Beta 1 the other day.  .netTiers 2.3.0 is a maintenance release containing many bug fixes and patches. We have also added various requested features like Enterprise Library version 4 as well as support for Visual Studio 2008.

You can download the 2.3.0 Beta 1 templates at the following locations. You can download it the following locations: SVN, Google code, or www.nettiers.com. Please submit all bug reports to http://code.google.com/p/nettiers/issues/list.

A tip that not a lot of people know is that the samples are not reset during every new release of CodeSmith.  New versions of templates are added to the CodeSmith template directory for the Major and Minor versions. However that is not the case for regular builds (identified via the assembly build number) for example: 4.1.x. Please note that this will also work if you want to reset your templates for the fun of it.

You might be asking yourself, well why doesn’t CodeSmith automatically update my templates for me. Well there is a pretty good reason behind this. There is no way to know if you modified the current set of templates on your machine. If we were to just overwrite the files with the new templates that contain bug fixes, you could lose a lot of unsaved work.   

So if you are experiencing a template related bug and you didn’t cleanly install CodeSmith for the very first time on your machine. The chances are your templates are out of date and need to be saved manually and updated following the steps below.

The following steps below will reset your samples to the version that of CodeSmith that you updated to, or installed to. If the samples still do not show up in CodeSmith Explorer. Then you can find the sample templates located in two zip files: samples.zip and maps.zip, located in Program Files\CodeSmith folder, and you can extract these to the correct folder inside of you’re my documents folder (Documents\CodeSmith\Samples\v4.1\Templates).

PLEASE CREATE A BACKUP OF ALL YOUR TEMPLATES BEFORE PROCEEDING!!!

First you will need to exit all CodeSmith related applications (CodeSmith Studio, Visual Studio) and follow the steps below.

1. Open the Windows Run dialog box by hitting the Windows Key and R. or by going to the Start menu and clicking on run. or start -> run) dialog box and type “cmd” and click the “OK” key.
   
   
2. Next type “cs /resetsamples” into the Command Prompt window and hit enter.
3. Finally type “y” to confirm that you want to reset your templates and hit enter.

Congratulations your CodeSmith templates have been reset.

The other day I came across a bug when upgrading my site to Community Server 2008. The Community Server 2008 upgrade tool would throw an exception when trying to move my files into CFS. The exception was result of the upgrade tool trying to pull down post attachments where the Section or Post didn't exist.

This might not seem like such a bad thing, but it is for two reasons:

1. You have a file that is taking up database space that isn’t accessible within Community Server.
2. Community Server appends the SectionID to file name. Since the SectionID is null an exception will be thrown when creating the file name.

I created the following SQL statement that will delete all cs_PostAttachments where the SectionID and ApplicationType is NULL and the section doesn't exist in the cs_sections table.

DELETE
    cs_PostAttachments
FROM
    cs_PostAttachments
LEFT JOIN
    cs_Sections
ON
    cs_Sections.SectionID = cs_PostAttachments.SectionID
WHERE
    cs_PostAttachments.Content NOT LIKE 0x AND
    cs_Sections.SectionID IS NULL AND
    cs_Sections.ApplicationType IS NULL

-Blake Niemyjski

Every once in a while you might run into a licensing problem when using CodeSmith.  This can be when the Visual Studio add-in becomes corrupted, or you encounter some kind of licensing problem and you have problems activating.  You can fix these related problems by resetting the license file and reactivating your copy of CodeSmith. 

First you will need to exit all CodeSmith related applications (CodeSmith Studio, Visual Studio) and follow the steps below.

1)    Open the windows run (windows key + r or start -> run) dialog box and type “cmd”

2)    And type “cs /resetlicense” hit enter and type “y” and hit enter again. This will remove any CodeSmith license files from your computer.
Your command prompt window should look something like this.

C:\Users\Administrator>cs /resetlicense
CodeSmith Console v4.1.3.3349
Copyright (c) 2002-2008 CodeSmith Tools, LLC.  All rights reserved.
WARNING: This will reset your license files and you will need to re-register and activate your license.  It will not extend your trial period.
Press Y to confirm that you would like to reset your license: y
Reset license complete.

3)    Next launch CodeSmith studio and try to register your key. You should now see the activation prompt.

Check out the screen casts / videos of the Microsoft 2008 Lang.NET Symposium event. They have some pretty interesting videos available for everyone, granted you have Silverlight installed.

View ( 2008 Lang.NET Symposium Videos )

"Welcome to Microsoft DreamSpark Professional Developer and Designer tools for students at no charge" ( Microsoft ).

I think this is really a great thing that Microsoft did for the students of the present and future.  It allows students to get enriched in a great platform and at the same time use the leading tools of today to create their dreams. I am hoping that they open this program up to more students.

"Microsoft launch DreamSpark - a program to give students all over the world access to Microsoft developer and designer tools at no charge.  It's available through channel 8, our student community and can be found at http://channel8.msdn.com.  The idea behind this is really straight forward - provide professional tools to students and empower them to make incredible breakthroughs and get a head start on a cool career in technology. 

This program is currently being rolled out to 10 countries around the world including United States, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium.

Students will be able to download any of the following software products via Channel 8 (channel8.msdn.com) and will have to go through a quick online third party-driven authentication process to validate their student status. Once this is done, they will be able to download the software of their choice- one title or all.

Microsoft developer tools.

• Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
• XNA Game Studio 2.0 ( 12 months free membership in the XNA Creators Club )

Microsoft designer tools.

Expression Studio, including:

• Expression Web
• Expression Blend
• Expression Design
• Expression Media

Microsoft platform resources.

• SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
• Windows Server, Standard Edition" ( FREE Developer & Designer Tools for Students )

Visit ( DreamSpark )