Hi Ivan - The install and uninstall process is definitely not perfect, but I think it has evolved well over the course of the product cycle into a reliable installation process (thanks in large part to beta testers who were willing to try out the early versions). Most of the problems I have seen have arisen from interaction issues between previous beta versions and the final released version because of bugs that shipped in the betas but that have been fixed in later builds.

I encourage you to report any bugs and suggestions that you see with the final version of VS 2005 and SQL 2005 on the product feedback site (http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback). The product teams see every one of the bugs/suggestions reported there, and you can take a look at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/08/28/457416.aspx for an example of a hard-to-reproduce bug in .NET Framework setup that was found and fixed solely due to the bugs reported on the product feedback site.

Hi Phil - I'm very sorry for the hassles that you're running into. Can you please send me the log files named %temp%\dd_dexplore80*.txt from this machine so I can take a look? You can send them to aaronste@microsoft.com.

Hi John - You will need to uninstall the VS 2005 beta 2 version by using the steps listed at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/uninstall/default.aspx or by using the uninstall tool available from that page.  After doing that, you should be able to download and install the final release of the .NET Framework 2.0 from http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/updates/default.aspx.

Hi Rajesh - It depends on what the 3rd party control supports.  Some of them were developed during the beta cycle of VS 2005 and they chose to support VS 2005 beta versions.  Some of them only support the final release of VS 2005.  Either way, I encourage you to use the final release of VS 2005 now that it has shipped instead of continuing to use the beta version.

Hi Friendlycoder - I have heard of a few instances of this type of error but have not been able to figure out a root cause.  You may need to use the Add/Remove Programs entries to remove the previous beta versions instead of relying on the automated tool.  You can find a list of which products need to be uninstalled and in what order they need to be uninstalled in at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/uninstall/default.aspx#manual.

If you have trouble uninstalling any of those products, you can use steps like the ones I posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/10/30/487096.aspx to locate it and forcibly remove it.

Hi Gary - This could be a volume label issue.  You need to make sure that your VSTS CDs are labeled VSVSTSD1, VSVSTSD2, and VSVSTSD3.  Can you check and see if things work better with those specific volume labels?