Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

August 2005 - Visual Studio Setup

Handling GAC and NGEN Operations after Reboot

August 30, 2005 Aug 30, 2005 08/30/05
Heath Stewart
Some people have noticed a general slow-down after restarting their computers after installing a .NET Framework 1.0 or 1.1, or a Visual Studio .NET 2002 or 2003 patch. This is due to a change in how post-reboot operations are handled that are sometimes necessary after installing a patch.Windows Installer automatically schedules files for ...

Supporting our Lifecycle Policy with ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT

August 29, 2005 Aug 29, 2005 08/29/05
Heath Stewart
To conclude the series of the problems with ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT, we will extend the workaround to support setting ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT=1 to support Microsoft's lifecycle policy on support N and N-1, where N would be a service pack, and N-1 would be the previous service pack or the RTM.Since we've essentially already developed our own sequencing ...

Suggestions for Future Posts

August 29, 2005 Aug 29, 2005 08/29/05
Heath Stewart
In an effort to present to the community information about which you're interested, please suggest topics for future posts by adding your comments. While my job deals more with Windows Installer — more specifically setup and deployment of the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, and other Developer Division products — my other interests ...

Articles

August 28, 2005 Aug 28, 2005 08/28/05
Heath Stewart
Below is a list of articles I've written over the years. If you have ideas within the scope of Windows Installer, Microsoft .NET, COM, COM interoperability with .NET, or other related topics please add your comments to this post...

Working with ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT

August 26, 2005 Aug 26, 2005 08/26/05
Heath Stewart
Continuing the series on the perils and necessity of ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT, it's time to explain one solution for having your cake an eating it too.If you have determined that you need to define ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT=1 in your product RTM, remember that your product nor patches will not show up in the Add/Remove Programs (ARP) control panel unless ...

Major Upgrade Patches

August 22, 2005 Aug 22, 2005 08/22/05
Heath Stewart
A question was asked in Aaron Stebner's blog about major upgrades via MSP patch files with sequencing information. I would like to take this opportunity — at Aaron's request — to explain a few guidelines regarding major upgrades in Windows Installer.Basically, a major upgrade is an update to a product that changes all of the ...

Script Repository

August 17, 2005 Aug 17, 2005 08/17/05
Heath Stewart
If you're using Windows Script to perform a lot of everyday functions or even need a one-use script to automate a batch process there's a great resource available on the web on our TechNet site: The Script Center Script Repository. There are hundreds of example scripts available from managing Active Directory to managing Office documents and ...

More Photos from Mt. Rainier

August 17, 2005 Aug 17, 2005 08/17/05
Heath Stewart
Jens Häupel, a developer evangelist for Microsoft Germany, recently attended (English translation) a Tech Conference here in Seattle and had a chance to visit and take photographs — very nice photographs — at Mt. Rainier. The views around Microsoft really are very beautiful.On that note, the Developer Division Customer Product...

A Reason for ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT

August 16, 2005 Aug 16, 2005 08/16/05
Heath Stewart
Last week I blogged about how ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT is dangerous, but there are reasons for using it. Two reasons ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT is defined in the product MSIs for the .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 is to localize the Add/Remove Programs (ARP) entries, and to change certain registry values so that the external UI handler is invoked...

Deploying Crystal Reports with your Managed Application

August 16, 2005 Aug 16, 2005 08/16/05
Heath Stewart
A common problem I see in various developer forums is trying to build an installation package with the Crystal Reports merge modules or running an application with Crystal Reports on another machine is that the registration code is often forgotten. You may see an error like the following on another machine where Crystal Reports has not been ...