Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

How to fix “Invalid License Data” after upgrading from Visual Studio 2012 Beta to RC

(image) 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...

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...

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 ...

Why Visual Studio 11 Requires Space on the System Drive

Users have asked why space is required on the system drive (typically the C: drive) when they choose to install Visual Studio 11 to another drive.While Visual Studio 11 does allow you to install the majority of features to another drive, VS11 still requires space on the system drive for the following reasons: For Visual Studio ...

Announcing Visual Studio 11 Beta

Along with the release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, we have released Visual Studio 11 Beta and Jason Zander has announced many of the great new and improved features in VS11 Beta. We have also introduced a new setup experience with VS11. (image) Setup is built atop Burn, the Windows Installer XML engine, as well as the managed ...

Installing across network may slow Visual Studio 2010 and Service Pack 1 setup

If you are installing Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 from across the network and are experiencing slow install times, this could be caused by low network bandwidth and long verification times.How to work around this issueFor Visual Studio 2010 RTM, copy the entire contents of the network directory locally. This ...