Visual Studio Setup
Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products
Latest posts
Detection keys for Visual Studio 2012
Administrators and developers who need to detect if Visual Studio 2012 is installed on a machine can use similar keys as those used for past releases like Visual Studio 2010. In general, these detection keys are always found in the 32-bit registry hive with a pattern like: So if you needed to detect if VS2012 Ultimate is installed, you can check if the “Install” registry value is set (will always be a REG_DWORD with data set to 1) in the following language-independent registry key: What has changed from previous releases like VS2010 is that Ultimate contains the Professional and Premium edit...
How Visual Studio 2012 Avoids Prompts for Source
Requiring source packages during installation, repairs, and even uninstall are common occurrences for some customers. The core issue is that Windows Installer needs the source location of the package and its files to install - and can't find them automatically - when attempting to restore the machine to the state it should be in (according to that package and any patches applied to it). When the WiX community was developing Burn - the chainer that is part of the toolset in v3.6 - we knew this was a common problem for any Windows Installer-based deployment. So we implemented package caching which copies all ins...
Easier Authoring for Slipstreaming Patches
Slipstreaming Windows Installer patches is, technically, installing the MSP simultaneously with the MSI as a single transaction. This is, effectively: The applicable transforms (both the authoring changes and patch transforms) are applied to the MSI and the MSI is installed with those changes from the start. Both the MSI and MSP are cached in the Windows Installer cache. The slipstreamed MSP(s) can even be removed later if desired (unlike admin patching). WiX v3.6 has supported this for a while in the Burn engine using the following fragment: The problem with this syntax as your bundle grows in scale is that y...
New Revision of the July 2012 Update for Visual Studio 2012 RC
We have released a new revision of the July 2012 Update for VS2012 RC. This update replaces – or supersedes – the previous update, which means the download link is the same. We have retained the previous packages that VSUpdate installs – or chains – to support customers who may still require source packages when repairing Visual Studio 2012 RC or uninstalling VSUpdate RC.We have also updated the previous KB2703187 article with the changes made in this re-release.Should you have any problems installing the new revision July 2012 Update for Visual Studio 2012 on RC (v11.0.50522.1) please dow...
July 2012 Update for Visual Studio 2012 RC
A few months ago we introduced a new method of delivering updates to Visual Studio 2012. Today we published updates in the same manner for Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidates.You can download the July 2012 update (KB2703187) for VS2012 RC from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=257044. More information about this update is available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2703187.As with Visual Studio 11 Beta, you will also be notified via Extension Manager. We did, however, make a change for RC to check for updates periodically. This will improve the end-to-end experience for VS updates.As always, we’d lo...
How to fix “Invalid License Data” after upgrading from Visual Studio 2012 Beta to RC
A few customers have reported the following error after upgrading from VS2012 Beta to the Release Candidate (RC): Invalid License Data Reinstall is required. Aaron Marten on the Visual Studio Extensibility team has a post describing how to fix this issue. This should only happen if you upgrade a “higher” Beta edition to a “lower” RC edition, like from VS11 Ultimate Beta to VS2012 Professional RC. You may avoid this issue if you haven’t yet installed the RC by upgrading to the same or “higher” edition than you installed for the Beta (i.e. Professional < Premium < U...
Announcing Windows Installer XML v3.6 Release Candidate
On a day of many great Release Candidate (RC) announcements, I should not forget another important RC milestone: Windows Installer XML (WiX) v3.6 RC.We’ve made a lot of improvements, simplified some scenarios, and fixed a lot of bugs. Download v3.6 RC and give it a try and let us know if you find any other issues.
Announcing Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate
Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate (RC) – formerly known as Visual Studio 11 – is now available for download! Jason Zander’s blog has a lot of great information on all the exciting changes we have made, including improvements to setup. I encourage you to download and give VS2012 RC a try. Should you find any issues with setup, please be sure to to download and run our log collection utility. You can then find help through the following channels for setup: For general feedback or to file bugs for Visual Studio itself, look to the bottom of Jason’s blog post for a wealth of r...
Visual Studio 11 Beta Updates
Today we announced a new method of delivering updates using a notification system many Visual Studio developers should be familiar with: the Visual Studio Extension Manager. Developers will now be notified in Visual Studio when updates are available.When the notification balloon is clicked, Extension Manager will open to a new node: Product Updates. Clicking the Update button will download the update so you can run it.The update is also available on the Download Center and you can read more about what’s included for the Beta Update in KB2677574.We’d love to hear your feedback on the Visual Studio blog...