Greg Reinacker’s Weblog

This wasn’t obvious at all, so I thought I’d post this in the hopes of saving someone some pain:

If you have a non-managed application which creates a COM object implemented in managed code, by default the latest installed version of the framework will be loaded. Even if the COM object is specifically targeted to the 1.0 Framework. Took a while to finally find the docs for this:

The following factors determine the runtime version:

• A COM application can specify the runtime version in an application configuration file. For additional information, see Configuring a COM Application for Side-By-Side Execution.
• The runtime can already be loaded into memory by an extensible host, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office. The plug-in COM application uses the runtime that is loaded for the host to run managed components.
• When strict control is needed, a COM application can preload a specific version of the runtime programmatically by invoking the CorBindToRuntimeHost method (exported from mscoree.dll). Alternatively, the application can target a different version of the runtime, based on an activated COM class, by invoking the GetRequestedRuntimeVersionForCLSID method (also exported from mscoree.dll) and passing the return value to CorBindToRuntimeHost.

In the absence of these factors, the startup code loads the latest compatible runtime version installed on the computer.

Interesting. Makes sense now, I suppose, but not what I initially expected.

Which leads to an interesting problem. If an application needs to use two inproc COM objects, one which only works with the 1.0 Framework, and one that only works with 1.1, you’re screwed. And these objects don’t even have a way to tell anyone that they only work with a certain version. Seems the only safe thing to do, if you’re such a COM object, is support every version of the framework that you might be loaded into. Hmm.

Harry Pierson has a GDN workspace built for Sharepoint syndication. RSS right out of Sharepoint.  Very cool!

Thanks to Olivier and Robert for the link.

Mark Pilgrim announced the Atom 0.2 snapshot yesterday…and, coincidentally, NewsGator 1.3 (also announced yesterday) supports Atom 0.2 feeds. A couple of notes about NewsGator’s current level of support:

• Multipart/alternative content is supported, although multiple independent content items will not both be shown. To clarify:
   
  If you have multiple renderings of a single content item, using multipart/alternative, you will see one of them.
   
  If you have multiple independent content items, you will only see one of them. When the spec solidifies, NewsGator will add support for multiple independent content items.
   
• The xml:base support that didn’t make it into the 0.2 snapshot is implemented anyway in NewsGator - because it’s the right thing to do. See Simon Fell’s feed for a good example of how this should look.
   
  Note that the way relative links are handled in NewsGator is slightly different between RSS and Atom feeds, in the absense of a xml:base element.
   
• MIME types and encoding specifications for titles is supported in NewsGator 1.3, although this too didn’t make it into the 0.2 snapshot.

Phil Wolff interviews Steve Rose, creator of RSSJobs. One part I took note of:

Q: What’s on your wishlist for news reader features?

A: I would like to see an RSS Reader that could manage the items from an RSS feed as individual items. A user could archive specific items for viewing later after it is no longer included in the feed.

NewsGator works this way today. Very important, as we’re often reminded from some of our business customers.

The original code I had posted to generate RSS feeds from a VSS database has expired; I just put up a new version that will work through the end of October, and fixed a couple of bugs at the same time.

This is an awesome tool (IMHO) - check it out! :-)

Refer to the original post for instructions.

Download here: msi | zip

At long last, NewsGator 1.3 is now available!

A few highlights:

• NNTP newsgroup support:

• Full posts optionally shown on NewsPage:

• Feed wizard, with search and directory support
• Tighter folder integration, supporting renaming and deleting folders
• Offline and draft posting mode
• Multiple profile support
• Plain-text publishing
• Initial Atom support
• Relative link resolution
• Fixed some major stability problems
• Lots of other changes!