I too am having the same problem. Start the app, open the windsor family and click on a name and the app crashes every time. Nice.
I am using XP SP3.

When I tried to Uninstall this using the AddRemove Programs, it did something but I get this message. What is going on with this app? See image attached.

Very strange. Some people are reporting this but I can't replicate the error. I used both the version from the site and the latest compiled version of the source code.

My thought are that a the install has not worked correctly.

Anyways, if it helps, I converted your file to version 3, attached (loadproblemnew.zip) . I also zipped up the compiled source code (3.0.zip). It can be run simply by clicking the FamilyShow.exe direct from where you extract the files.

Hope this helps

elyoh

Compiled source.

I'm begining to wonder if this may be a bug in the .NET 3.5 SP1 software. MS has a patch for a series of bugs including this one:

"In the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, because of the changes that are made in checking a NULL value to support address space layout randomization (ASLR), a failure case causes an access violation in the runtime. This access violation manifests as an ExecutionEngineException exception. Additionally, the process is terminated."

I've got a fully patched version of .NET 3.5 SP1 and I can't reporduce any of the issues described in either XP or Vista. Given that I can get it to work, it points to some difference in the installed versions of .NET etc.

.NET Patches and Updates

.NET 3.5 SP1 can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=AB99342F-5D1A-413D-8319-81DA479AB0D7&displaylang=en

.NET patches needed for the above (KB959209). There are 3 patches listed when you click your particular operating system from the link below ( note the specified order of install )
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959209

Then perhaps run windows update and to make sure everything is else is upto date too.

If you could see about updating things if you haven't already and maybe that will fix it :)

I have the solution!! There is a problem, not sure why I couldn't reproduce it before but I looked into it more and worked it out. There is a bug in the method LoadVersion2() which replaces spaces in the full file path instead of just the file name. This only manifests itself in XP because VISTA folders tend not to have spaces e.g.

C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Family.Show\

is

C:\Users\User\AppData\Local

I think the developers have been testing only on Vista because there are also a number of UI glitches when you use XP.

The null errors people get happens a lot when the file hasn't loaded properly and goes away with the proposed fix below. I tested this in XP SP3 and Vista SP1 and windows 7 beta (build 7000).

Proposed fix:

Replace lines 256 - about 294 in People.cs with:

                   // store the stories into temp directory to be packaged into OPC later
                    foreach (Photo photo in p.Photos)
                    {
                        string photoOldPath = Path.Combine(Path.Combine(
                            Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments),
                            App.ApplicationFolderName), photo.RelativePath);
                            if (File.Exists(photoOldPath))
                        {

                            string photoFileName = Path.GetFileName(photo.FullyQualifiedPath);
                            //only remove spaces from the filename not the whole path
                            photoFileName = ReplaceEncodedCharacters(photoFileName);
                            photo.RelativePath = ReplaceEncodedCharacters(photo.RelativePath);

                            string photoFile = Path.Combine(photoFolder, photoFileName);

                            File.Copy(photoOldPath, photoFile, true);
                        }
                    }

                    // store the person's story into temp directory to be packaged into OPC later
                    if (p.Story != null)
                    {
                        string storyOldPath = Path.Combine(Path.Combine(
                            Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments),
                            App.ApplicationFolderName), p.Story.RelativePath);
                        if (File.Exists(storyOldPath))
                        {

                            string storyFileName = Path.GetFileName(p.Story.AbsolutePath);
                            //only remove spaces from the filename not the whole path
                            storyFileName = ReplaceEncodedCharacters(storyFileName);
                            p.Story.RelativePath = ReplaceEncodedCharacters(p.Story.RelativePath);

                            string storyFile = Path.Combine(storyFolder, storyFileName);

                            File.Copy(storyOldPath, storyFile, true);
                        }
                    }

@elyoh: Thanks! Really appreciate the fix. Now I can actually debug on my old XP PC. :)