Visual Studio installation Tips

Question

_{Sunday, October 1, 2006 5:49 AM | 5 votes}

I thought I would take this chance to write a bit about how to achieve a, hopeful, successful installation of Visual Studio.

As you may know, there are a good few topics in this subforum (Visual Studio setup and installation) about users asking questions and wondering why on earth their Visual Studio installation does not install successfully.

Let's go through them step by step and hopefully myself, and other contributors, will help you get somewhat the best installation experience.

Rule 1

Disable your Anti Virus software

Disabling your AV software is the first step that must be taken. Whilst some AV software do not interfere with installation and are "clever", majority of them do, especially McAffe. They are only doing their job to prevent any programs/applications from installing on your system. This is a good security measure however if you know that the software you are going to be installing, in this case Visual Studio, is trusted, then continue installing.

Some AV software prompt you if you wish to continue and let the software run scripts/install - in this case select yes to continue. Some unfortunately don't and looks like as if nothing is happening, even if you leave it running for 5 hours for example, you will discover no progress has been made what so ever.

So the best thing to do overall is to disable your AV software, and disconnect your internet connection to prevent any Viruses or malicious items being entered into your computer, just as an extra security measure. After all, this is what Anti virus software does - it prevents your computer from having (and removing) such deadly beasts from entering and infecting your system

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Rule 2

Update your computer (Windows)

Be sure to be "patched" up. Windows update (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) finds and installs any critical security "fixes" and patches overall for the Windows OS. This will help installations sometimes in installing correctly. Whilst this may not be the case 100% of the time, it is better overall to keep your system up to date any way to make sure you are protected from any bugs or such things

General notes

Microsoft recommends, and you should probably know from experience, not to install Beta products (any beta's, from Windows OS, office, service packs etc...) on your main computer or even on a commercial environment. Support is very limited to nothing as its in beta meaning, its under development and expect a good few bugs in there.

The Beta's are created for your benefit - the benefit being for you to have a sneak peak at the product(s) and gain some feedback from you, the user/customer, so Microsoft can improve the product. Microsoft is a very customer based/oriented company and feedback from you, the customer, is vital and important.

It is recommend to remove any Beta products in question, when installing the "final" version of the product. This prevents any failures during installation or running of the application.

Most of the time, the beta removal kits/tools are released by Microsoft to completely remove any traces of the beta product even after uninstalling it. This ensures that the installation and usage of the "Final" product will be as smooth as possible.

So for example, Visual Studio 2005 beta removal kit is located here (With some more information here)  and should be used before installing the full/final version of Visual Studio.

Be sure to give the system a reboot just in case, even if not prompted to.

Some files are not copied during installation (File errors...)

Sometimes setup may prompt you for inserting the CD/DVD back in the drive as it cannot find a specified file for installing the product successfully. You may have already placed the CD in but its still prompting for the CD

If you have the Visual Studio product in a CD Set then be sure to insert the next correct CD for installation to continue.

If you still have this problem, be it a CD/DVD installation, then here are some steps to take to try and overcome this problem:

• Make sure, as above, to disable the AV software during installation
• Try installing it on a different CD/DVD drive - some drives are more sensitive than others when handling media, it's just the way they have been manufactured. It may also be the fact that your drive is on it's last legs (however unlikely perhaps, unless it happens to majority of your CD's/DVD's)....
• Create an ISO image of the CD/DVD. This can be achieved by using for example, Nero Burning ROM, and creating an image of the CD/DVD. Doing this, will help us see if there is a problem with the actual media or something similarly related.

Once the ISO image has been created, either:

• Extract the ISO image, to your local computer, that you have just created using something like ISOBuster and run the installation from the harddrive/harddisk
• Mount the ISO image to a virtual CD drive, using another 3rd party tool something like MSVCD, and run the installation from here.

   If the above steps still do not work, try to install it on a different computer. Does it work? if not, most likely the media could be faulty/damaged in which case you need to go back where you obtained the product from and explain the situation. They should be able to help you.

For MSDN subscriptions/subscribers who have this problem, please contact your local support center

How to install Visual Studio CD/DVD image files

The image files usually end in ISO or IMG. These are an actual image of the CD/DVD media as is. Such images are downloaded either from the MSDN subscription site or the Microsoft website where downloads of trial versions are given, for example the Visual Studio 2005 90 day trial.

Once the file(s) have been downloaded, all you need to do is either:

• Burn the image file using something like Nero, burning it to DVD/CD
• Use a 3rd party tool to extract the contents of the image (like ISOBuster) and run the installation from the computer
• Use a 3rd party Virual CD mounting tool, like MSVCD for example, to mount the image to that virtual CD drive, so you can run the installation/files as if you were running it from an actual CD/DVD.

Any one of these 3 methods can be used to (eventually) run the installation of the product.

Hopefully these items will be enough for you to start the installation of Visual Studio 2005. All of these, except for the last point, apply for any products in general, not just Visual Studio 2005.

If you still have problems, please feel free to post a new question, giving details of the following:

The OS version (Operating System) you are running

• Which .NET Framework?
• Which Visual Studio version?
• Any error's and error logs reported by the Visual Studio product