Adding features to Visual Studio 2008 may fail to load setup components

Heath Stewart

When attempting to add features to Visual Studio 2008 after it has already been installed, you may see an error that reports,

A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.

Fix

Updated: a hotfix has been uploaded to Code Gallery to address this issue. As stated on the page,

Please be aware this Hotfix has not gone through full Microsoft product regression testing nor has it been tested in combination with other Hotfixes.

You may still use the original workaround posted below.

Workaround

You can choose to either remove older patches installed for Visual Studio 2008, or install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1.

To remove older patches,

Windows Vista and Server 2008

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Control Panel
3. Click on Programs
4. Click on View installed updates
5. Scroll to the grouping for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
6. For each patch,
   1. Select the patch
   2. Click the Uninstall button

Windows XP and Server 2003

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Control Panel
3. Click on Add and Remove Programs
4. Make sure View Updates is checked
5. Scroll to Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
6. For each patch nested beneath it,
   1. Select the patch
   2. Click the Remove button

Whether you have uninstalled older patches or installed VS2008 SP1, after finished run setup from the Programs menu and not from the installation media to add additional features.

Windows Vista and Server 2008

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Control Panel
3. Click on Programs
4. Click on Uninstall a program
5. Select Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
6. Click the Uninstall/Change button

Windows XP and Server 2003

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Control Panel
3. Click on Add and Remove Programs
4. Select Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
5. Click the Uninstall/Change button

Description

This problem is caused when older patches added new Windows Installer features to the product to support servicing scenarios. Patches KB944899v2 and newer – including VS2008 SP1 – update the setup components to remove this incompatibility.

Because the setup components must be updated, only the cached setup components on the hard disk can be replaced. Running setup from Add/Remove Programs (ARP) runs the locally cached setup components in order to add new features without causing the error described. Running setup from the installation media will use the incompatible setup components causing the error to occur again.

Heath Stewart Principal Software Engineer, Azure SDK

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