Vista support when developing Media Center applications on Windows 7

Problem:
I switched from Vista to Windows 7 x64 a while back and currently also do my software development on a Windows 7 machine.

Some time ago I begun getting complaints from some users that they were not able to use my Media Center Status Application as it was giving some "Invalid Application - Unable to launch FBMCE" errors when starting Media Center on Windows Vista.

I hadn't done any drastic changes in my program code and testing the application on Windows 7 machines (both x86 and x64) didn't indicate any issues. Finally I decided to really dig into this and installed Vista to Virtual PC. Well, what do you know, I immediately got the same error users were reporting :)

Solution:
Error message was because I had started to build my application on Windows 7 instead of Vista.

In Windows 7, the Media Center version of the assemblies referenced (Microsoft.MediaCenter.dll and Microsoft.MediaCenter.UI.dll) is 6.1.* but Vista only has versions 6.0.*.

Taking the assemblies from Vista and referencing those directly instead of the ones in Windows 7 GAC solved the issue and the application again works on both Vista and Win7.

Media Center Add-In for updating Facebook Status

I was at TechEd EMEA in Barcelona for the first time in 2007. Although I've been lately working a lot with MOSS 2007, I tried not to go on too many MOSS sessions. Instead I enjoyed some excellent MS Robotics Studio, Silverlight, XNA, Media Center sessions.

On the Media Center session I learned how to make simple add-ins to the new Media Center that comes with Vista. Of course, it all seems so easy when you're looking at a practiced session. In practice there were several issues I ran into.

Nevertheless, here it is: a Vista Media Center Background add-in that updates your Facebook user status according to what you're watching/listening on Media Center. So, if you're watching a program called "News" on Media Center, soon your Facebook status will say "...is watching News". In the same way the DVD, Recorded TV and Video title is shown. If you're watching pictures status will just be "...is watching pictures". When listening to music status will be "...is listening to ARTIST - TITLE".

Add-in checks Media Center MediaState every 10 seconds and only connects to Facebook and changes the status if change in MediaState is detected. It also handles the Extended Permissions situation as users need to give the application permissions to update user status. Add-in uses Facebook.NET libraries for most of the Facebook related operations.

Extenders are not currently supported since Facebook login must be done using a specific URL and even if I would create a separate Add-In to take care of the login (instead of using Windows Forms) I couldn't have any browser control in that add-in (in MCML). This thing is subject to change as I investigate the other ways to accomplish this.

Please give it a try and let me know what you think. If you have questions and/or problems, please post them in Facebook so that they'll be in one place.

Requirements

• Vista Home Premium or Ultimate
• .NET Framework 2.0
  

Quick instructions

1. Install using setup.msi, restart is required
   
2. Start Media Center
3. Separate Windows Forms window is opened where you must login to Facebook.
4. If this is the first time running the add-in a notification is shown that you have to give the Extended Status update permissions
5. Extended permissions Windows Forms window is shown. Grant the permission, and close the form.
6. Add-in runs in background updating your Facebook status.
   

Later when Media Center is started, only Facebook login is required (if you haven't checked the persistent login checkbox).

Facebook application page is here. See the front page of my blog for latest version information of the AddIn.