Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Visual Studio Team System install problems
Well, I've gone from 2 replies, to 1, to none. My audience has dwindled, and just when I have something useful to share.....
I'm a Microsoft MVP, which means I keep up with all the beta stuff flying around. I've been running VS2005 beta 2 for months, with WinFX and the LINQ preview. VSTS trial edition is finally available from the MSDN site ( I'll get the full one in the mail ), so I downloaded it last night. My hope was that, as VS2002, VS2003 and VS2005 beta 2 all co-exist happily on my hard drive, I could install 2005, install WinFX, and keep beta 2 for direct comparison of bugs I find, and also for LINQ.
No such luck. Instead, I got a list as long as my arm of the order in which to uninstall stuff. WinFX and LINQ are not on the list, although a lot of other stuff I don't have installed is. I work through the list, a couple of things, including J#, hang in the uninstall and I have to kill them. I get to the bottom of the list, the .NET framework refuses to uninstall, I have some thing that needs it, but it can't tell what. How does it know I have something, if it can't tell what ?
It turns out that WinFX installed three things, two under Microsoft WinFX, and one under just WinFX ( at the bottom of the uninstall list ). So, finally, I can remove the .NET framework 2.0 beta 2. Now, I start the install.
After a couple of minutes, a dialog box comes up telling me I have beta 2 stuff still installed. It gives a list of things it COULD be, but says it could basically be anything. I go back to the docs. They tell me that there are a couple of uninstalls that could fail, and give me command line arguments to complete them. One is J#, which I vaguely remember having trouble with, and either way, I'm stuck, so I give them both a try. Both report I am trying to remove something that is not there.
I go back through the docs again, after looking through add/remove programs 10 or so times. I discover that Microsoft have a tool for removing the last remnants of prior versions. It's not guarenteed to work, or not to do harm. I desperately want it to not hurt VS2003, but I try it anyhow. here is the link : http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=47598. This tool runs, tells me I still have stuff installed, and proceeds to uninstall, you guessed it - J#. Now, I uninstalled this thing, and ran the uninstaller again from the command line. I guess J# feels lucky enough that someone bothered to install it at all ( it must be there by default, I can't imagine actually SELECTING it ), and clings on for dear life. I know I'd fear for my job if I was on the J# team.
So, 5 hours after starting, I am about half way through the actual install of VSTS2005. I am desperately hoping they fixed the bugs that I found yesterday ( moved a 2003 C# project to 2005, IDE crashed every few minutes ), so I can get some actual work done.
I'm a Microsoft MVP, which means I keep up with all the beta stuff flying around. I've been running VS2005 beta 2 for months, with WinFX and the LINQ preview. VSTS trial edition is finally available from the MSDN site ( I'll get the full one in the mail ), so I downloaded it last night. My hope was that, as VS2002, VS2003 and VS2005 beta 2 all co-exist happily on my hard drive, I could install 2005, install WinFX, and keep beta 2 for direct comparison of bugs I find, and also for LINQ.
No such luck. Instead, I got a list as long as my arm of the order in which to uninstall stuff. WinFX and LINQ are not on the list, although a lot of other stuff I don't have installed is. I work through the list, a couple of things, including J#, hang in the uninstall and I have to kill them. I get to the bottom of the list, the .NET framework refuses to uninstall, I have some thing that needs it, but it can't tell what. How does it know I have something, if it can't tell what ?
It turns out that WinFX installed three things, two under Microsoft WinFX, and one under just WinFX ( at the bottom of the uninstall list ). So, finally, I can remove the .NET framework 2.0 beta 2. Now, I start the install.
After a couple of minutes, a dialog box comes up telling me I have beta 2 stuff still installed. It gives a list of things it COULD be, but says it could basically be anything. I go back to the docs. They tell me that there are a couple of uninstalls that could fail, and give me command line arguments to complete them. One is J#, which I vaguely remember having trouble with, and either way, I'm stuck, so I give them both a try. Both report I am trying to remove something that is not there.
I go back through the docs again, after looking through add/remove programs 10 or so times. I discover that Microsoft have a tool for removing the last remnants of prior versions. It's not guarenteed to work, or not to do harm. I desperately want it to not hurt VS2003, but I try it anyhow. here is the link : http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=47598. This tool runs, tells me I still have stuff installed, and proceeds to uninstall, you guessed it - J#. Now, I uninstalled this thing, and ran the uninstaller again from the command line. I guess J# feels lucky enough that someone bothered to install it at all ( it must be there by default, I can't imagine actually SELECTING it ), and clings on for dear life. I know I'd fear for my job if I was on the J# team.
So, 5 hours after starting, I am about half way through the actual install of VSTS2005. I am desperately hoping they fixed the bugs that I found yesterday ( moved a 2003 C# project to 2005, IDE crashed every few minutes ), so I can get some actual work done.
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Wow, what a painful uninstall/install. I installed VS 2005 Professional on my home machine and work machine, not a single problem in either case.
My home machine had lots of beta/CTP stuff inluding WinFX, WinFS, LINQ, and a few others. I had VS J# 2005 beta 2 installed on my home machine and it actually uninstalled no problem. I used the VS uninstall tool to remove all that for me.
I will say that when moving from Beta 1 to beta 2 at my home machine several months ago, I did a manual uninstall of the beta 1 stuff, and because I didn't uninstall in the correct order, it gave me hell trying to get things going agin. I actually had to reinstall all the beta 1 stuff, then uninstall in the correct order, then install beta 2. Maybe you're seeing a similar problem if you didn't use the auto-uninstall tool.
And hey man, if you want visitors to your blog, you gotta advertise. :-) Put a link to your blog in your sig in emails, CP postings, Slashdot postings, etc. This way I usually attract a bit of traffic and even keep a few subscribed.
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My home machine had lots of beta/CTP stuff inluding WinFX, WinFS, LINQ, and a few others. I had VS J# 2005 beta 2 installed on my home machine and it actually uninstalled no problem. I used the VS uninstall tool to remove all that for me.
I will say that when moving from Beta 1 to beta 2 at my home machine several months ago, I did a manual uninstall of the beta 1 stuff, and because I didn't uninstall in the correct order, it gave me hell trying to get things going agin. I actually had to reinstall all the beta 1 stuff, then uninstall in the correct order, then install beta 2. Maybe you're seeing a similar problem if you didn't use the auto-uninstall tool.
And hey man, if you want visitors to your blog, you gotta advertise. :-) Put a link to your blog in your sig in emails, CP postings, Slashdot postings, etc. This way I usually attract a bit of traffic and even keep a few subscribed.
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