Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

July 2012 Update for Visual Studio 2012 RC

A few months ago we introduced a new method of delivering updates to Visual Studio 2012. Today we published updates in the same manner for Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidates.You can download the July 2012 update (KB2703187) for VS2012 RC from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=257044. More information about this update is available at ...

How to fix “Invalid License Data” after upgrading from Visual Studio 2012 Beta to RC

(image) A few customers have reported the following error after upgrading from VS2012 Beta to the Release Candidate (RC): Invalid License Data Reinstall is required. Aaron Marten on the Visual Studio Extensibility team has a post describing how to fix this issue. This should only happen if you upgrade a “higher” Beta edition to a...

Announcing Windows Installer XML v3.6 Release Candidate

On a day of many great Release Candidate (RC) announcements, I should not forget another important RC milestone: Windows Installer XML (WiX) v3.6 RC.We’ve made a lot of improvements, simplified some scenarios, and fixed a lot of bugs. Download v3.6 RC and give it a try and let us know if you find any other issues...

Announcing Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate

(image) Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate (RC) – formerly known as Visual Studio 11 – is now available for download! Jason Zander’s blog has a lot of great information on all the exciting changes we have made, including improvements to setup. I encourage you to download and give VS2012 RC a try. Should you find ...

Visual Studio 11 Beta Updates

Today we announced a new method of delivering updates using a notification system many Visual Studio developers should be familiar with: the Visual Studio Extension Manager. Developers will now be notified in Visual Studio when updates are available.When the notification balloon is clicked, Extension Manager will open to a new node: Product ...

Why Visual Studio 11 Requires Space on the System Drive

Users have asked why space is required on the system drive (typically the C: drive) when they choose to install Visual Studio 11 to another drive.While Visual Studio 11 does allow you to install the majority of features to another drive, VS11 still requires space on the system drive for the following reasons: For Visual Studio ...

Packaging Caching in Burn

There are times when repairing or servicing a product that source media is required. As more product installs move to web-based installs, these prompts for source are harder to solve. In order to replace missing, corrupted, or older files, the source is required because those files have to come from somewhere.Burn, the bootstrapper application...

Announcing Visual Studio 11 Beta

Along with the release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, we have released Visual Studio 11 Beta and Jason Zander has announced many of the great new and improved features in VS11 Beta. We have also introduced a new setup experience with VS11. (image) Setup is built atop Burn, the Windows Installer XML engine, as well as the managed ...

Introducing Sticky Patching and Add-ons

Late last week I checked in a feature for Windows Installer XML’s (WiX) chainer, Burn, that I’m really excited about (ask my colleagues): sticky patching.This is a feature at the bundle (what we call our composition of packages for Burn) level that supports related bundles of type “Patch” and “Addon”. ...