Visual Studio Setup

Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Compiler Update for the Windows SDK 7.1

April 1, 2011 Apr 1, 2011 04/1/11

Heath Stewart

After installing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1, some users were unable to use the x64 or IA64 compilers from the Windows SDK 7.1. Now the Visual C++ team has released an update for VS2010 SP1 available here. For more information about the update, please see KB2519277 on the Microsoft Support site.You can install the update to fix existing ...

Verify the ISO checksum for Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 before installing

March 25, 2011 Mar 25, 2011 03/25/11

Heath Stewart

While we recommend installing Visual Studio 2010 SP1 using the web download – which only downloads and install those packages needed on your machine – you can also download an ISO for offline use. If you downloaded the ISO for VS2010 SP1 from the Microsoft Download Center or from MSDN Subscriber Downloads, please verify the ...

Installing Visual Studio 2010 RTM and Service Pack 1 together

March 15, 2011 Mar 15, 2011 03/15/11

Heath Stewart

Now that Visual Studio 2010 SP1 has been released, administrators and developers may wish to install both RTM and SP1 together for a seamless experience. With the release of VS2010 RTM we already published the Visual Studio Administrator Guide that documents a lot of the instructions I’ll utilize below. I encourage you to review that ...

Installing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 may prompt for source

March 14, 2011 Mar 14, 2011 03/14/11

Heath Stewart

Some users are reporting that when installing Visual Studio 2010 SP1 they are prompted for MSI files as shown in the following example screenshot. These prompts for source are most common during rollback on failed install attempts and uninstall since original RTM files need to be put back on the machine and may not have been cached by Windows ...

Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 has shipped

March 8, 2011 Mar 8, 2011 03/8/11

Heath Stewart

As announced in Soma’s blog post, Visual Studio 2010 SP1 has been released to MSDN subscribers today and will release to the general public on Thursday, March 10th.We have made a number of significant changes in Visual Studio 2010 SP1 from past releases we hope will make deployment smoother for both developers and administrators alike...

Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 installing for over 2 hours could be a sign of a problem

March 2, 2011 Mar 2, 2011 03/2/11

Heath Stewart

On average customers are experience ~45 minute installs for Visual Studio 2010 SP1. Based on machine performance, even seeing install times of a little over an hour isn’t unexpected. But if VS2010 SP1 is taking more than a couple hours to install, there could be a problem and in the case described below requires user action.Description ...

A patch may take as long or longer to install than the target product

February 20, 2011 Feb 20, 2011 02/20/11

Heath Stewart

Often I’m asked why installing a Windows Installer patch (MSP) takes as long or longer to install than the target product (MSI). While this isn’t always the case for every patch, it’s certainly possible for a number of reasons. It may also come as a surprise that the size of the patch can have little to do with the time to ...

Providing feedback on Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta installation

December 8, 2010 Dec 8, 2010 12/8/10

Heath Stewart

By installing Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Beta now (or tomorrow for general availability), you have a great opportunity to provide early feedback before we ship VS2010 SP1 RTM. Not only do we welcome feedback on the updates to the product such as the new Help Viewer, performance regressions, and more; but we also want to hear your feedback on the ...

Announcing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta

December 7, 2010 Dec 7, 2010 12/7/10

Heath Stewart

If you haven’t seen from Soma’s or Jason’s blog, Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Beta is available today for MSDN Subscribers and will be available on Thursday for the general public. This service pack contains a lot of performance improvements and a new Help Viewer based on strong customer feedback. You can find out about more ...

Delete shadow copies to compact VHDs and AVHDs

December 7, 2010 Dec 7, 2010 12/7/10

Heath Stewart

For a few years my primary development machine has actually been a VM with source located on a physical hard drive attached to the VM. This helps reduce latency compared to a differencing disk (AVHD) which may need to expand to accommodate additional data (common when building). It’s also easier to maintain than multiple boot entries ...