A while back, I wrote a blog post describing how to extract the contents of the XNA Game Studio 2.0, 3.0 and 3.1 setup packages and install the components manually in case the normal installation process fails.  I just went back and updated that blog post to also list the steps for extracting and manually installing XNA Game Studio 4.0.

I’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to update this type of older blog posts in place as new product versions are released or post new ones.  In this case, I decided to update the existing post since I can then have a single location to point people to for all versions of XNA Game Studio.  However, I also wanted to post a new item about this to help improve visibility since I’m not sure how often folks go back and look at older content.

Here is a copy of the steps I added for XNA Game Studio 4.0.  Note - for the instructions below, if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows, you will need to use %programfiles(x86)% instead of %programfiles% for the installation paths.

Please refer to the previous post for instructions for all versions of XNA Game Studio.

To manually install XNA Game Studio 4.0 

1. Download xnags40_setup.exe and save it to your hard drive
2. Run xnags40_setup.exe /x to extract the contents to a folder of your choosing
3. Go to the folder you extracted to in step 2 and run the MSI named redists.msi

   Note: This MSI will only display a small progress bar while it is installing and will not tell you when it is done.  When the progress bar disappears, continue to the next step.

4. Run the MSI at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Setup\XLiveRedist.msi
5. Run the MSI at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Redist\XNA FX Redist\xnafx40_redist.msi
6. Run the MSI at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Setup\xnaliveproxy.msi
7. Run the MSI at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Setup\xnags_platform_tools.msi
8. Run the MSI at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Setup\xnags_shared.msi
9. Run the MSI at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Setup\xnags_visualstudio.msi
10. Go to the folder you extracted to in step 2 and run the MSI named arpentry.msi

<update date="11/8/2010"> Added a note about the %programfiles(x86)% path on 64-bit versions of Windows. </update>

<update date="11/21/2011"> Removed an incorrect step from the list. </update>