As a Zune owner I have been quite excited to get my hands on XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP.  I am excited about not only being about to develop games, but also applications for my Zune (see this post about XNA for the Zune).  So, I eagerly downloaded the setup, ran the install, and all was well, until I went into the “XNA Game Studio Device Center” to add my Zune device:

After clicking “Next” I was greeted with the following error:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Unable to find the specified file.
   at Microsoft.Xna.GameStudio.DeviceManagement.UnsafeNativeMethods.AcquireZuneTransport()
   at Microsoft.Xna.GameStudio.DeviceManagement.ZuneDeviceInfo.GetAllConnectedDevices()
   at Microsoft.Xna.GameStudio.DeviceManagement.UI.ZuneNamePage.SetCurrentPage()
   at Microsoft.Xna.GameStudio.DeviceManagement.UI.AddDeviceWizard.Proceed()
   at Microsoft.Xna.GameStudio.DeviceManagement.UI.ZuneWarningPage.SetCurrentPage()
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

After a bit of digging around, I discovered that this exception is caused because there is no support for 64-bit operating systems in XNA Game Studio 3.0 yet.  Unfortunately, all of my PCs right now are 64-bit Vista to take advantage of >3.5 gig of ram and to test applications in 64-bit mode.  So, I will have to attempt to run this in a Virtual PC and hope I have better luck.

To save you some frustration, there are a few other things to note about this version of the CTP:

• You must be running Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition or higher or Visual C# 2008 Express Edition.  Those of you running Visual Studio 2005 are out of luck for now.
• No game development for XBox 360 yet.  This CTP was released for working with the Zune.  Perhaps more CTPs will come out over time.
• No support for 64-bit operating systems.  They should have support for this by RTM though (I hope).