MS just totally jacked me over

[Denaes]

Ive got windows 2000, Visual Studio 2005 Professional installed.

I want to make a few hokey board games... nothing super fancy, maybe a basic one at first then some more modular board games like Fantasy Flight and Games Workshop put out. Not direct ripoffs, but something in that vein.

I think Ill stick to GDI+, but after talking with a friend, I realize if I ever want anything advanced or cross internet playing (ie four people on different machines playing together) I would have to use DirectX... or it would be easier for me at least.

I break out my old .Net Game Programming with DirectX, one of the worst written programming books Ive ever read. Tons of errors and even the error free code is backwards and youre writing code against methods and classes that youll have to make but havnt been explained yet.

The first two chapters are GDI+, then it goes to DirectX in chapter 3. So I download the April 2006 DirectX SDK. Downloaded fine, wont install. I look online and windows 2000 is listed as compatable. I look on the documentation of the download and it says XP or higher. Thats a waste of a 300mb download.

I get out my MDSN discs and find the June 2005 version. That too wont install.

I break out the disc that came with the book and it gets about 1/3rd the way installing before it cant read the disc anymore. Thinking more rationally, even if that version had installed, its 2003 managed code and probobly wouldnt have worked with 2005.

So now I have to find the XP Home disk my laptop came with and reinstall the whole damned OS. I guess I can keep making due with GDI+ in the mean time, but still, 2000 is a great OS, current and stable.

I suppose its not really MSs fault (other than that nix in the supported OSs thing) but still, they made VS 2005, win2k, XP & DirectX and I want to blame someone, so there it is.

 

[Arch4ngel]

And if you install XP Home, watch out for ASP.NET because it doesnt come with IIS and make sure you are not on a domain because XP Home cant join a domain, etc.. etc...

Cant understand why though.

Need to pay 100$ more for this? humm... quite interesting.

Cheers

 

[snarfblam]

As far as .Net Game Programming With DirectX, I feel your pain. Some of the code in the book isnt even compatible with newer versions of managed DirectX. Nothing but headaches. Fifty dollars that could have been better spent. Of the two programming books Ive bought in my lifetime, that one was by far one of the worst.

 

[Denaes]

I can understand its not the books fault that DirectX broke compatability between a beta and a release. And between one version and another.

But with the software given on the CD, following his directions youd often be left with code that wouldnt compile. Youd look at the CD and he only has the "Final Code" and would show you in drafts. So the first draft code could be totally different than the third draft or the final draft. I see no reason (certainly not disc space) why a copy of each draft wasnt on that CD.

Also the way the code was written was just... aggrivating. I dont think he used a single property and had functions that were like a page long (or more) rather than breaking them into smaller functions. And I dare not deviate mid code and try to fix things because then Id be totally lost. Even if I stay on track the code needs to be fixed to work.

And if you install XP Home, watch out for ASP.NET because it doesnt come with IIS and make sure you are not on a domain because XP Home cant join a domain, etc.. etc...

Cant understand why though.

Need to pay 100$ more for this? humm... quite interesting.

Cheers

I have windows 2000 Pro so I could do ASP.Net work. When I first got my laptop with XP Home, XP wasnt usable. It would crash opening up MS word. Not MS Word would crash, XP would. Since then theyve fixed XP a lot. I use it at work and it just doesnt crash anymore.

So right now its either IIS or DirectX. Well I know of a few IIS emulators. Pains, but Im not really working on any IIS/asp.net stuff anyways at the moment.