Scott's code and other ponderings... » Windows 7

Horrible error running against a 32bit .Net Library from a 64bit application

Scott Leckie — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:28:00 +0000

So, this is my first new dev project on my shiny new Windows 7 64bit machine (having come from a 32bit Vista box). As it happens, I want to use the Microsoft Data Visualization Components, which are only available as a set of 32bit DLLs compiled sometime in 2006.

OK, all good so far – loaded ‘em up, referenced them, threw a TreeMap control on my form, compiled fine and then ran it, and… Bang!

Got a message;

Could not load type ‘Microsoft.Research.CommunityTechnologies.Treemap.NodeColor’ from assembly ‘TreemapGenerator, Version=1.0.1.38, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=3f6121a52ebf7c82′ because it contains an object field at offset 0 that is incorrectly aligned or overlapped by a non-object field.

Turns out the problem is that I’m referencing a 32bit component from a 64bit application, and [...]

Downloaded CHM help file shows “Navigation to the webpage was cancelled”

Scott Leckie — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:08:00 +0000

Huh – that was an odd one. I copied a bunch of controls over to my Windows 7 box and the DLLs work, but the help files are stuffed;

It seems this is common problem, fixed by right-clicking the CHM file and clicking on an “Unblock” button which I’ve never seen before!

I can’t claim credit for this – found it at Rob Chandler’s blog here. Weird sense of priorities, huh? OK to copy and run any old DLL that you found lying in the bin, but a helpfile? Woooohhhh… no… that’s much [...]

Microsoft Data Visualization Components on Windows 7

Scott Leckie — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:33:00 +0000

I’ve been playing around with the Data Visualization Components recently (looking to incorporate the TreeMap control with a SequioaView-a-like disk space analyser) but ran into problems getting the toolkit installed on Windows 7 RC1. Running the setup from the official page at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/dda33e92-f0e8-4961-baaa-98160a006c27/default.aspx gets stuck looking for .Net Framework 1.1.4322;

Of course, being Windows 7, .Net 3.5 is already installed which should include .Net 1.1 but it looks like the Components installer is hopelessly confused. I couldn’t get the installer to believe we had something better than 1.1 already installed and I didn’t want to try and hack .Net 1.1 on top of Windows 7.

So, all I really needed were the “bunch of files” that come in the Component setup so [...]