Visual Studio Setup

Installation and containerization of the Visual Studio family of products

Get the Windows Installer PowerShell Module easier with WMF 5.0

Many years ago when PowerShell was first in beta, I saw an opportunity to write cmdlets that I could string together in different ways rather than writing and maintaining a bunch of one-off Windows scripts for various day-to-day tasks and customer diagnostics. I created the Windows Installer PowerShell Module to fill that role. These cmdlets ...

Failure when upgrading from VS2015 RTM to VS2015 with Update 1

(image) If you have Visual Studio 2015 RTM installed and attempt to install Visual Studio 2015 with Update 1, you may see a failure like the screenshot that reads, KB3022398 This action is only valid for products that are currently installed. This is a fatal error that occurs when upgrading from VS 2015 RTM to the VS 2015 ...
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Removing Visual Studio components left behind after an uninstall

When you install Visual Studio and related content like Windows Kits or some add-ons, most packages that comprise those bundles are reference counted to make sure they are not removed prematurely. Uninstalling Visual Studio and related content should eventually remove those packages (i.e. last one out the door turns off the light). Contrast ...

Redirect the Package Cache using registry-based policy

Visual Studio can require a lot of space on the system drive, and previous methods of redirecting the Package Cache can be tricky for some people to set up or even maintain as junctions across volumes may be removed on boot. The cache is there for good reasons and has significantly reduced the failure rate, but for people with smaller system ...

Visual Studio 2013 continuously repairs producing many small log files

If you have Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Professional, Premium, or Ultimate editions installed and are finding many small MSI*.log files in your %TEMP% directory, you may find you are running low on disk space because of how many of these files are created. While they may only be about 3MB, what causes these files to be produced can do so ...

Detection keys for Visual Studio 2015

Administrators and developers who need to detect whether Visual Studio 2015 is installed can use similar registry keys as with past releases. This time around, though, we’ve made some changes to the lineup of products but the registry scheme remains the same. Most of the detection keys are found in the 32-bit registry hive – the ones you...