Hi, I faced this same issue in my Windows XP Professional SP2 Spanish system some weeks ago. I reproduced it with version 14.0.8050.1202 and the brand-new 14.0.8064.206 release (both in Spanish language also). I didn't try the technical previews before the Wave 3 release.
A "file or path not found" problem made sense in this context, so I used Process Monitor to track it down. Suppose that the temporary folder path in Windows is C:\Documents and Settings\usuario\Configuración local\Temp, where
Configuración local means Local Settings. Then, I opened Process Monitor and put filters on "process name contains WindowsLiveWriter" and "path contains Temp". I expected the usual accesses to the path C:\Documents and Settings\usuario\Configuración local\Temp\WindowsLiveWriterXXXX\supfilesXXXX, but I didn't expect "path not found" entries referring to the path C:\Documents and Settings\usuario\Configuración local\Temp\WindowsLiveWriterXXXX\supfilesXXXX, which obviously didn't exist. Incidentally, the letter ó appeared encoded in its UTF-8 form (ó); i.e., the path was somehow converted to UTF-8 and then handed incorrectly in that form to the file I/O APIs.
Apart from redefining TEMP and TMP variables (Writer might be using
System.IO.Path.GetTempPath to obtain the temporary folder path, which apparently relies on
GetTempPath), I thought about a workaround that involved NTFS junctions (a kind of directory
soft links supported in Windows 2000 and later). Therefore, a junction named like
Configuración local can be created with the Junction tool from Sysinternals to target
Configuración local. For example:
junction "C:\Documents and Settings\usuario\Configuración local" "C:\Documents and Settings\usuario\Configuración local" (to remove the junction, use parameter -d)
However, junctions have a mayor drawback in Windows versions before Vista: you can't tell them apart from ordinary folders in Windows Explorer. The same applies to some third-party file managers, even in Vista. If you try to remove a junction as if you were deleting a folder, you will delete its target contents instead!
I have been using Windows Live Writer since summer of 2006 and it really changed the way I contribute content to blogs. The Windows Live team has done a great job.
Cheers!
Ramón Sola
