Dr. Dobb's | New Year Bug Cripples Microsoft Expression Preview

New Year Bug Cripples Microsoft Expression Preview

Call it a Y2K7 bug: Microsoft's preview version of Expression Design, its upcoming illustration and graphic design software, quit working after New Year's Eve. But a fix is on the way.

January 03, 2007
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/new-year-bug-cripples-microsoft-expressi/196800800

Call it a Y2K7 bug: Microsoft's preview version of Expression Design, its upcoming illustration and graphic design software, quit working after New Year's Eve.

A new Community Technology Preview (CTP) addressing the time bug will be posted imminently, Microsoft product manager Douglas Olson said in a blog post acknowledging the problem.

"This was caused by an unfortunate time-related bug in the code that somehow escaped our rigorous testing," Olson wrote. "I very much regret that this has happened, and I hope you will accept my apology. We appreciate the time and effort that you take when testing our products and especially the feedback that you give us."

Determined users have discovered that setting back the system clock on their PCs allows the December CTP to run. For those who don't want to hack around, a fix will be out by the end of Wednesday, Olson said.

Expression Design is one of four applications comprising Microsoft's new Expression suite, which aims to establish a foothold for the Redmond, Wash., company in the creative software market dominated by Adobe Systems. The suite is targeted at Web developers and designers.

Scheduled for release in the second quarter, the Expression suite has been working through public user testing for the past year. The first product, Expression Web, shipped last month, while free trials or beta versions of two other applications are available on Microsoft's Web site. Microsoft's development team has said that a feature-complete beta of Expression Design will be available soon.