Longhorn Sidebar RSS Howto

Well, after trying to compile and run the RSS Newsfeed sidebar from MSDN, it threw an exception on explorer.  Notice the file “bullet.png” is not available on the web site, and just replacing it with another png file did not do the trick.

The answer is to use the file from the SDK on the DVD. This link will only work if you have the Longhorn SDK installed.  It shows where you can download the full set of files as a zip, and extract it out.  Simply extract to a folder, open up the Longhorn Build Environment (shortcut on your start menu), navigate to the folder, and type: “msbuild NewsFeedTile.csproj”.  From there, copy the newly compiled dll, “bullet.png” and “setup.cmd” to a new folder (wherever you want to consider it “installed”), and run “setup.cmd”.  Right click on the sidebar, and click “News Feed”.  It comes default loaded with a MSDN feed; personally I like this one; right click the news feed app, and click on “News Feed Tile Properties” to replace it.  Now we just need to allow for multiple feeds...