Kenny Kerr

Microsoft UK

I’m visiting the Microsoft campus in Reading on Friday 26 October (tomorrow). I’ll be hanging out in building 3 I believe, for an MVP event. Do stop by and say hello if you’re in the area.

Go Bokke!

South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup!!!

To XmlLite or Not To XmlLite

Since publishing my XmlLite article in MSDN Magazine I have received a lot of questions about distribution. Clearly developers are very excited to have a fast and “lite” alternative to MSXML for native code but the lack of a redistributable for Windows XP keeps coming up as a roadblock.

XmlLite is fantastic but unless you’re only targeting Windows Vista and later you need to download the XmlLite update package on each Windows XP computer the software will be used on (unless you can wait for service pack 3). Of course users don’t want such complications and ISVs don’t want to introduce those complications. (To be fair, you should be able to get it from Windows Update so it’s not the end of the world.)

I have exhausted a number of avenues in trying to find an answer for all of the readers that have contacted me with this question but unfortunately have made little progress. Liaisons from the MVP program informed me that they are “unable to find an answer”. I even contacted the program managers who own XmlLite and they could not even provide an answer as to whether ISVs would be allowed to distribute the update package. I would begrudgingly accept “no” as an answer but “we don’t know” is frustrating.

So rest assured I have been trying to get an answer for all of you but the BDMs at Microsoft seem to be on vacation.  :)

As a developer, it’s just another reason to love Windows Vista. You get to take for granted the availability of things like XmlLite, the latest and greatest version of Task Scheduler, and many other excellent services, not to mention the latest version of the .NET Framework.

© 2007 Kenny Kerr

What Do You Want Me To Write About?

The third installment of my Windows with C++ column should be out next month and I am starting to think about what I will be writing about next year. It looks like I’ll be writing 5 articles for this column next year and I thought I would follow the lead of fellow columnist Charles Petzold and ask you, dear reader, what you would like me to write about.

I’m happy to write about any topic that touches on Windows and C++. It could be plumbing topics like WinHTTP or Peer-to-peer. It could be graphics topics like Windows imaging or WPF bitmap effects. It could even be Windows Server Virtualization.

Comments or emails welcome (kennykerr@gmail.com).

© 2007 Kenny Kerr

Where Have I Been?

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few months. Karin and I moved our family (three little kids) from beautiful British Columbia to England. Why on earth did we do that? Well it’s a long story but basically hopes of getting a US visa to work in Redmond ran out and we really wanted to get closer to family and couldn’t have been further away in Vancouver. It has been a long and arduous process but I am happy to report that we have settled in a town called Whyteleafe. The location isn’t particularly interesting as we just needed a place to settle while we figure out where exactly we want to live. Any ideas?  :)

It’s been great to hang out with the extended family over the last two months. Anyway, we’ve arrived and I hope things will get back to normal, if not the same kind of normal. I’m also looking forward to meeting many of the folks in the tech community here in England that I’ve only interacted with online. See you soon!

© 2007 Kenny Kerr