Using Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 VPCs

I know how it is. You find the download page you're seeking and you immediately scan the page to find the cherished Download button. For this reason, I always advise teams not to rely on download page content to ensure customer success with the download.

As a case in point, if you downloaded one of the Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 VPCs, and now you're cursing us because of this message in the error log:

"OrcasBeta2_VSTS" could not be started because a disk-related error occurred.

You may have understandably overlooked the second item of Required Software on the download page:

That's right. The Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 VPCs require the Visual Studio Code Name Orcas Base Image. The Beta 2 VPCs are differencing disks, not self-contained VPCs. The idea behind this is that you'd download one base image for use throughout the entire Visual Studio 2008 prerelease period and we'd be able to make smaller downloads of differencing disks.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and I'll be adding this nugget of info to the Visual Studio 2008 Downloads page today.

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