The good/bad news post is from last season, and I believe fixed. Though I didn't personally verify this, I did file the bug report.
The camera exposure settings for all MS LifeCams seems to be odd on UVC/linux devices. The parameters are described and given ranges that various APIs will use to communicate requested properties to the camera. The MS LifeCam exposure is described as going from 5 to 20,000, with increment of one. That is a lot of range.
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linu...uvc.devel/5717
That link is to a 2011 forum post about a lifeCam 5000, but explains the same behavior. I does list the magic values, which are twelve geometrically scaled numbers centered around 156. I don't have a camera to try, but if you can use the percentage equivalents, or make your own Set Exposure to avoid the floating point scaling, you can probably make a LifeCam specific Exposure VI work.
Greg McKaskle