Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Microsoft Codename Max

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Microsoft Codename Max

Posted in Learning .NET | PDC

So everyone is stoked about Microsoft Max as a good example of WinFX and Avalon on Windows XP. However, here's what Max had to say to me.

Maxsucks

Here's another. Note that these are REAL error messages.

Morefrommax

Is this where Avalon is taking us? Conversational Error Messages? CEMs?

UPDATE: I got Max working by shutting down all my 99 processes that I could (via End Task) and got down to 25 processes. Re-ran setup.exe and I'm in. (Weird Note: You must log into Max using Passport, but then you have to have an email sent to you to really convince Max that you're you. Hm.)

So, now that I have it working, someone send me some pictures using the sharing features of Max! (to my personal email address that you can guess is my "firstname@lastname.com")

Maxworks

Posted at 2005-09-13 11:57 AM by Scott
Comments [9]
Permalink

Tracked by:
"Being more honesty to customers" (ryanstevens.co.uk) [Trackback]
"Being more honest to customers" (ryanstevens.co.uk) [Trackback]
"Error messaging" (mike's web log) [Trackback]

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 2:34:30 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Wow...that's informative. :)

I assure you it looked much cooler when it was presented this morning in the keynote. ;)

David Stone

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 4:37:31 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scotty

I think you must be running the old build of Vista - you need the new PDC build

In terms of the error messages - at least they are cute....
They are not representative of Avalon - you are being too harsh - just a decision of the few developers that the wrote this app.

My thoughts are every unhandled exception like this should be logged http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/standards/Rules/RulesToBetterWindowsForms.aspx#ExceptionManagement

Adam

Adam Cogan

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 5:15:49 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I got several errors while trying to install it too...so I gave up.

Joe

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 5:25:28 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Those messages are one step away from 'Marvin the robot' type talk. "Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and you want me to be a photo album....".

Scott Allen

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 5:15:43 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Those errors are great, you should put them in the pool on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/errors/

travis

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 6:49:33 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

At least you got it to run. It won't even install on Vista, the home of Avalon and WinFX? How fdunb is that? Requiring only XP SP2?

Sam Gentile

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 11:27:51 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

whoops, typo... that should be "how dumb is that?" I also don't see anything here that the Mac iLife products haven't had forever and were copied...

Sam Gentile

Thursday, September 15, 2005 1:31:38 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I have another error message during setup Max:

"setup cannot update your Microsoft Codename Max files because the language installed on your system is different from the update language"

My OS is Windows XP Turkish

hatipoglu

Wednesday, September 21, 2005 10:09:20 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

No problems installing but find the overall thing rather bulky...
Personally, I prefer storing my pictures on Flickr and use GLFlickrShow to create/share online, fullscreen, slideshows...