Additional causes for 1308 or 1309 errors while installing Visual Studio

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I previously posted a set of instructions that can be used to copy Visual Studio installation CD/DVD media to a local hard drive to try to eliminate 1308 and 1309 errors that can happen while installing Visual Studio.

One of the customers who found that previous post found an additional known issue in the Visual Studio readme with another possible workaround that I had forgotten about when I posted that other blog item, so I wanted to provide a link to it here as well. Ironically, I was the person who investigated that issue when it was originally reported during the VS .NET 2003 beta program, but I forgot to list the workaround as an option in my previous blog post. :-)

Visual Studio setup will show 1308 or 1309 error dialogs in 2 scenarios:

1. When attempting to install from a shared CD-ROM drive.

In this scenario, you have 2 systems - one system with a CD-ROM drive that is shared out and that contains the Visual Studio installation CD, and another system that is connected to the shared drive that you launch setup on.

You can start Visual Studio and start installing, but when setup gets to the point where it needs the first file from CD2, it will show a 1308 error dialog instead of a disk swap request dialog.

In this scenario, you can go to the system where the CD-ROM is physically located, swap CD2 into the CD-ROM drive, and then go back to the system that you are installing Visual Studio on and press retry on the 1308 dialog and setup should proceed normally. You will need to follow this procedure for each disk swap that is needed during the installation process.

2. When attempting to install from a system that has multiple CD-ROM drives where CD1 is in one drive and CD2 is in another drive

In this scenario, you have a single system that has multiple CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM) drives installed, and you are attempting to install in a jukebox-like fashion. Windows Installer has an issue that prevents it from supporting jukebox installations for a multi-CD setup. This issue will appear if you have CD1 in one CD-ROM drive on a system and CD2 in a different CD-ROM on the same system. Instead of showing a disk swap request dialog, it will show a 1308 error dialog.

In this scenario, you can remove CD2 from the other CD-ROM drive, put it into the CD-ROM drive where CD1 is currently located, then press retry on the 1308 dialog nad setup should proceed normally.