Problems I've encountered today when installing the WinFX January 2006 CTP
1) Documentation Errors
When reading the documentation, I get scripting errors when accessing every page – a 80041001 script error, after which the page is readable but suffers from some layout issues. Oh, and occasionally it crashes.
According to this forum discussion, this is caused by an IE7 incompatibility with some of the content in the SDK. One solution is to downgrade IE, and the other is to switch to a newer CTP release (where some of the help content has been fixed). Since I am loathe to uninstall IE7 (which rocks) and I can't upgrade the SDK to the Feb. CTP (since our project uses the January bits), I'll just bite the bullet and live with the errors, and wait for the next IE7 beta drop which may fix it.
Resolution: None.
2) Visual Studio extensions.
For some reason, after installing the SDK and the Runtime Components on my XPSP2 machine, I can't get the Visual Studio extensions to install. It pops up an error dialog saying I don't have the proper prerequisites and exits.
Resolution: Downloaded the extensions again from the Microsoft site. I suspect that the version I had wasn't matched to the Jan CTP. The error didn't indicate anything to that effect, but the filedate on it was March 2nd, so maybe it's for the Feb. CTP.
3) Merging help collections
The WinFX SDK installs a large set of help files that are accessible independently from the Start Menu folder. I was looking for a way to merge those help files with the Visual Studio Combined Collection, and ran into a wall. I found various references to the H2 help-file format and various tools to build these collections, but nothing to do this supposedly simple task.
And then I got the Developer Extensions working (see #2) and it's supposed to do the work for me. Yay!
Resolution: Developer Extensions merge the help collections. You may be required to close and maybe kill all running DEXPLORE.EXE processes. You'll probably have to close all Visual Studio instances. You might have to turn off the lights and wait in absolute silence. MSDN Library may take 3-4 years to recalculate its indexes when you start. Eventually, though, you'll be rewarded with having the WinFX documentation integrated so seamlessly into the MSDN Library that you repeat the process above again, thinking that nothing had happened. Hint: It's under .NET Development -> .NET Framework SDK -> WinFX Development.