Visual Studio Setup
Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products
Latest posts
Visual Studio 2010 uninstall utility back online
Four years ago I published a utility to help perform a clean uninstall of Visual Studio 2010. Before we added package reference counting and related bundles to Visual Studio setup, we couldn’t always be sure which products were still required so not everything was removed. This utility will remove everything provided one of a few command line options documented in the original article.Unfortunately, the old site where the utility was hosted was archived and some readers recently pointed this out. I’ve since reposted the utility on the Microsoft Download Center and created a short URL (https://aka.ms/v...
Seeing colors with psake
Psake (pronounced like Japanese “sake”) is a build automation tool similar to others out there like make, rake, etc., but built using PowerShell as the language of choice. So it should be no surprise that I use it for my Windows Installer PowerShell Module. It’s useful for automating tasks not limited to just calling MSBuild, but also my PowerShell Help compiler (which loads the module in a separate process, thus allowing me to keep building in the same PowerShell host process), and selected tests with MSTest. When tests fail (and when practicing TDD they often do), it can be hard to identify wh...
Update does not apply or is blocked by another condition on your computer
We have investigated reports of some installs of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 reporting that no applicable updates are available even when VS2013 is installed. We have been unable to reproduce the cause in our labs and besides offering a workaround, we would like to ask for your assistance if you can reproduce the problem in the specific scenario described below. Problem When trying to install V2013 Update 2, you may see an error that reads, Update 2 does not apply, or is blocked by another condition on your computer. This is the result of either not having a qualifying product like Visual Studio 2013 Professi...
Incorrect hash value when installing Visual Studio 2013 Update 2
Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC introduces some cool new features and adds an option to slipstream the install of VS2013 RTM with Update 2 RC, but some attempts to download it have had the following problem. Problem When installing VS2013 Update 2 you see the error or warning message, “The hash value is not correct.” This will show up as either an error or a warning depending on the package. If you open the log file by clicking on the link in the Finish page, you may see an error like the following, [1543:4DC8][2014-04-03T13:05:00]e000: Error 0x80091007: Hash mismatch for path: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\....
Error in installation log for Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC can be misleading
Given many of the exciting announcements and features demonstrated recently at Build 2014, customers are downloading Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC. This update is quite a bit bigger than VS2013 Update 1 since it contains many new features. A small number of customers, however, are experiencing problems installing VS2013.2 RC. Symptoms While specific symptoms vary, some customers see an error dialog almost immediately or they see warnings after installation completes successfully. In these cases, customers have spotted the following error in the bundle installation log: [1543:4DC8][2014-04-09T12:00:30]e000: Er...
How to relocate the Package Cache
Visual Studio can require a lot of space on the system drive. Based on years of data collected from customers’ installations from the Customer Experience Improvement Program, we took advantage of this feature in Burn – the Windows Installer XML (WiX) chainer – to eliminate most errors during repair, servicing, and even uninstall. This was not a popular decision with some customers. For years even I pushed against caching Visual Studio deployment packages because of the impact to drive space as well, but as HDD space increased market studies showed little reason not to cache for the increased reliability of deploy...
Upgrading Visual Studio 2013 Update to a newer Update may be slow
Our first public release of Visual Studio Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 is available. There are, however, a couple of known issues in hopefully uncommon scenarios. Fixed We have fixed this in future versions of Visual Studio Update. This post is kept for historical reasons should any users have problems upgrading from pre-release versions of Visual Studio 2013 Update 1 to the final release bits of VSUpdate 1. Technically, this was fixed for VSUpdate 1 RTM, but the fix has to be in the release getting upgraded, so going from VSUpdate 1 RTM to any future CTP or release bits will not exhibit this prob...
Uninstalling Visual Studio 2013 with VSUpdate error: Element not found
Our first public release of Visual Studio Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 is available. There are, however, a couple of known issues in hopefully uncommon scenarios. Symptom If you attempt to uninstall Visual Studio 2013 after VSUpdate has been installed, you may see an error after a while that reads “Element not found.” VS2013 may not be completely uninstalled from your machine. Workaround Try uninstalling VS2013 again from Programs and Features. This should completely uninstall all but a few packages (like the .NET Framework and any other packages shared with other bundles) from your machine. More ...
Visual Studio 2013 shortcuts in Windows 8.1
Windows 8.1 made a change for RTM – as some MSDN Subscribers might’ve noticed – where newly installed applications’ shortcuts are not immediately visible on the Start menu. They are still installed and indexed, but you need to either swipe down on your touch screen or click the down arrow as shown below. On the Start menu, you can also just begin typing. Application shortcuts – along with files and settings – are displayed matching the text you typed. Just start typing “Visual Studio” and you’ll see a list of applications you can launch. This behavior is the same for modern and desktop applications, put...