Windows Live Writer and Mono

Inspired purely by the fact that I got a comment from Miguel de Icaza yesterday, I decided to try Windows Live Writer with the latest version of Mono rather than the stable version I had on my machine. It now gets a bit further - rather than immediately crash with nothing appearing on screen, it now crashes but gives me an error report...

12 September 2006 12:27:45

Version: 1.0
Build: 109

OS Version: Microsoft Windows NT 5.1.2600.0
Runtime version: 2.0.50727.42
Shutdown started: False
Program: C:\Program Files\Windows Live Writer\WindowsLiveWriter.exe

Memory Load: 69%
Total Physical: 753 MB
Available Physical: 226 MB
Total Page File: 1300 MB
Available Page File: 839 MB
Total Virtual: 2097 MB
Available Virtual: 1979 MB
Available Extented Virtual: 0 MB

Unexpected Error Occurred
An unexpected error has occurred within the application. 


System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at (wrapper cominterop-invoke) WindowsLive.Writer.Interop.Com.ActiveDocuments.IOleObject:SetClientSite (WindowsLive.Writer.Interop.Com.ActiveDocuments.IOleClientSite)
  at WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlControl.InitializeMSHTML () [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlControl.Init () [0x00000] 
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlControl:Init ()
  at WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlEditor.InitializeMshtmlControl (IServiceProviderRaw serviceProvider, WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlOptions mshtmlOptions) [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlEditor..ctor (IServiceProviderRaw serviceProvider, WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlOptions mshtmlOptions) [0x00000] 
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlEditor:.ctor (WindowsLive.Writer.Interop.Com.IServiceProviderRaw,WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlOptions)
  at WindowsLive.Writer.HtmlEditor.HtmlEditorControl..ctor (IMainFrameWindow mainFrameWindow, WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlOptions options) [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostHtmlEditing.BlogPostHtmlEditorControl..ctor (IMainFrameWindow mainFrameWindow, WindowsLive.Writer.Mshtml.MshtmlOptions options, IBlogPostImageEditingContext imageEditingContext, IBlogPostSidebarContext sidebarContext, IContentSourceSidebarContext sourceContext, WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostHtmlEditing.SmartContentResizedListener resizedListener) [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostHtmlEditing.BlogPostHtmlEditor.InitializeNormalEditor (IBlogPostEditingSite postEditingSite) [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostHtmlEditing.BlogPostHtmlEditor..ctor (IMainFrameWindow mainFrameWindow, System.Windows.Forms.Control editorContainer, IBlogPostEditingSite postEditingSite) [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorMainControl.InitializeHtmlEditor () [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorMainControl.InitializeUI () [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorMainControl.Init (IMainFrameWindow mainFrameWindow, IWorkspaceBorderManager workspaceBorderManager, IBlogPostEditingContext editingContext) [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorMainControl..ctor (IMainFrameWindow mainFrameWindow, IWorkspaceBorderManager workspaceBorderManager, IBlogPostEditingContext editingContext) [0x00000] 
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorMainControl:.ctor (WindowsLive.Writer.ApplicationFramework.IMainFrameWindow,WindowsLive.Writer.ApplicationFramework.IWorkspaceBorderManager,WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.IBlogPostEditingContext)
  at WindowsLive.Writer.PostEditor.PostEditorForm.CreateMainControl () [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.ApplicationFramework.SatelliteApplicationForm.OnInitializeWorkspace (WindowsLive.Writer.ApplicationFramework.PrimaryWorkspaceControl workspace) [0x00000] 
  at WindowsLive.Writer.ApplicationFramework.SatelliteApplicationForm.OnLoad (System.EventArgs e) [0x00000] 

I don't know enough about Mono or .NET to figure out quite what all this is about but I reckon it's probably got something to do with the mass of DLLs that are in the installation directory. I might have a bit more of a play later, whilst Ubuntu's installing on my freshly built backup server.