Software & Services Bret Grinslade : setup

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 are released!

bretgrinslade — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:27:00 GMT

The release formerly known as Orcas has shipped. This is a great release and builds on the foundation of the .NET Framework 2.0. This release also includes the .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0 SP1 bits.

Aaron Stebner has a great post with the download links for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 and some details. Aaron's blog is always the first place to check for trouble shoot advice and the most current links.

A few notable setup changes in this release.

Visual Studio Trial upgrades work. So install the trial today, and when you get your full copy, just insert the key via setup on the DVD or Add/Remove programs
The .NET Framework installer only downloads the components your computer needs in order to install... so no Vista bits on XP and not 64 files for x86 etc.

So check it out and have fun. There are so many new things in the product... but I really love LINQ and having designers for WPF in Visual Studio!

Let us know hwo it works.

-Bret

BTW, please post setup issues on the forums.

Visual Studio -- http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=26&SiteID=1

.NET Framework -- http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1020&SiteID=1

How to report an installation or setup problem with VS2008 beta or .NET Framework 3.5 beta

bretgrinslade — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:33:00 GMT

My team owns the installation experience for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5. One difficulty in the setup and deployment space is that the real world is a lot more complicated and messy than we can re-create in the test lab.

That is where you can help.

If you have run VS2008 or NETFX 3.5 setup and have had a problem, you can send your setup logs to our team. Aaron has a good post on "understanding the setup logs." We don’t promise to know what the fix is for your issue, but we will try to come up with a work around and to identify the problem. We add the work-arounds to our blogs and to the online readme.

To make this easy, we have created a Hotmail mailbox you can mail your logs to:

vs2008deployment@hotmail.com

And we have posted a tool you can use to collect the logs.

VS and NETFX Setup Log Collection Tool

So, if you are seeing a setup problem. You can go the forums to post a question. You can review Aaron Stebner's blog and review the readme to see if this is a know issue. Here are some of the recent issues Aaron has documented.

If you are still stuck, this is probably not a known issue. In that case, please send us your logs.

BTW, we do allow you to send logs via the check box that sends feedback to Microsoft. However, the way we have implemented that on Vista, they don’t get uploaded immediately and they take 30 days before Vista prompts you to allow them to be uploaded. So, logs from Vista are especially appreciated!

Installing VS 2008 Beta2 VSSetupWatson\DW20.EXE cannot copy…

bretgrinslade — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:49:00 GMT

I have seen quite a few reports of the VS 2008 installation not being able to copy a specific file. This almost always means that there is a corruption on the media or in the ISO.

The first trouble shooting step I take is to XCOPY the contents of the DVD or ISO to a local hard drive. If the xcopy succeeds, then the media is probably not corrupted. In this case, you can just install from the hard drive by running the setup.exe from the folder you copied the files into. VS and NETFX can install from a network location or from a local media in a sub-directory.

If the XCOPY fails, you probably have a corruption. Basically you will need to re-download the ISO or get a new media.

One option is to try the Microsoft Secure Content Downloader from Microsoft Research. This is a limited time trial, so it might not be available when you check the link.

Getting Help with Visual Studio

bretgrinslade — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:42:00 GMT

Most developers have heard that Visual Studio and the .NET Framework released Beta2 of Orcas at the end of July.

However, I have seen a few questions on how to get help or report issues.

"Help! I can't figure out this bug or VS won't install!"

First, the MSDN or ASP.NET forums are a good place to discuss issues. Remember this is COMMUNITY and not a support center. Good behavior here is to post issues and questions, respond to other people if you can help, and not use this for mission critical stuff!

MSDN Forums (all): http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?SiteID=1

MSDN Orcas: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=153&SiteID=1

ASP.NET Forums http://forums.asp.net/

There is also Microsoft Connect. This is more for filing bugs or reporting issues.

http://connect.microsoft.com/

Of course, search is a good way to find issues that folks already are discussing. Be a bit on guard here. I often see posts were a person thinks they have one issue and it has a very different root cause. Try to be sure the issue is actually the same before making to much investment in the work arounds or fixes... especially if they mean doing things like hacking the registry, etc.

Finally, for VS and NETFX setup, Aaron Stebner maintains on of the best blogs going on issue. I almost always check his blog before I post (and I work on the VS and NETFX deployment technology team!)

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/

Have fun with VS and NETFX 3.5! -Bret