The Beta 2 Express editions have been tested side-by-side with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and these two editions can be installed on the same computer.  However, the Express editions have not been thoroughly tested with Visual Studio .NET 2002 and we recommend that you first uninstall Visual Studio .NET 2002 before installing the Express editions.  The Express editions will be supported side by side with Visual Studio .NET 2002 by the final release.

 To resolve this issue

Uninstall Visual Studio .NET 2002 before installing the Express editions.

If multiple Beta 2 Express editions are installed on the same computer, and then one is uninstalled, the uninstall unregisters file extensions it has in common with the other Express editions. This disables the ability to open a Visual Studio file type (.cs or .vb, for example) by double-clicking on file icons in Windows Explorer.  This will be corrected by the final release.

To resolve this issue

There are two ways to work around this problem.

1. Reassociate the Visual Studio file-type extensions in the Folder Options dialog box (in the File Types tab), which you can access using the Explorer's Tools | Folder Options menu.
2. Alternatively, uninstall and reinstall the Express editions to reregister the file extensions.

Administrator deployment using SMS or Active Directory is not supported for Visual Studio Express Editions for the Beta 2 version.  On a clean machine that is running Windows XP Professional, if you run the utility to create an .ini file for deployment (using admin docs), Setup launches, but after clicking past the End User License Agreement (EULA) and Feature Selection screens, the install hangs.

MSDN Express Library for Visual Basic© Express Edition Beta 2, Visual C++© Express Edition Beta 2, Visual C#© Express Edition Beta 2, Visual J#© Express Edition Beta 2, or Visual Web Developer© Express Edition Beta 2 provide the only version of the MSDN Library that contains documentation for those Express Language Edition. The desired set of documentation needs to be specified at install time.

To resolve this issue

If you failed to specify the desired documentation when you installed your Express edition, you can install it by going to Add/Remove Programs and adding the optional component.

SQL Server Express is the only version of SQL Server that can work with the Express <language> Editions of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 with the exception of Microsoft Visual Web Developer edition.  The effected versions include the following: Visual Basic© Express Edition Beta 2, Visual C++© Express Edition Beta 2, Visual C#© Express Edition Beta 2 and Visual J#© Express Edition Beta 2.

To resolve this issue

If you failed to specify SQL Server Express© when you installed your Express edition, you can install it by going to Add/Remove Programs and adding the optional component.

There is no support for installing SQL Server Express on a 64 bit machine.  This is not a supported scenario for Beta 2.

To resolve this issue

There is no workaround to this issue.

The .NET Framework common language runtime (CLR) provides configuration options that allow developers to specify which version of the CLR their application should run against.  However, this makes it difficult to test the applications against CLR versions other than the one specified, since it requires manually reconfiguring options in each application’s config file.

To resolve this issue

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 provides a switch that, when turned on, forces all applications executing on a given computer to run on the latest version of the runtime.  This switch overrides settings specified in the app.exe.config and host.config files, which normally specify that the application run on either version 1.0 or 1.1 of the CLR.

You can activate this switch either by setting a registry key or by setting an environment variable:

Activate/Deactivate the Switch Using a Registry Key

Turn on the switch using the following registry setting:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\OnlyUseLatestCLR=dword:00000001

Turn off the switch using the following registry setting:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\OnlyUseLatestCLR=dword:00000000

Activate/Deactivate the Switch Using an Environment Variable

Activate the switch using the following variable set to "1", as follows: COMPLUS_OnlyUseLatestCLR=1

Deactivate the switch using the following variable set to "0", as follows: COMPLUS_OnlyUseLatestCLR=0

You can find a sample using the registry to activate/deactivate the switch posted on GotDotNet, at the following URL: http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=4caff66c-df51-40ab-bd88-090d34e77520

During installation of the MSDN documentation for Express editions of Visual Studio 2005, you will be prompted to select the destination folder for the documentation files. However, your selected file path is not respected and the documents are installed instead to this location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft MSDN Quarterly\NETDOCS\V20

The installer Repair feature does not work for any Express version of Visual Studio 2005 for which the installation was set to a unicode path.

If Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 and Visual Studio .NET 2003 are installed on the same machine, in that order, then subsequently uninstalling Visual Studio .NET 2003 will corrupt your installation of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2.

To resolve this issue

To resolve this issue, you must rerun the Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 setup from the CD and select the Repair/Reinstall option.

During an install, the user may be prompted to reboot after certain components are installed. After a reboot, installation should continue.  When the installer is trying to install MSDN Express after a reboot, the progress bar looks full and the product is marked as installed even though setup has not yet completed and the product is not fully installed.  The screen looks like it's hung while MSDN Express is being installed in the background.

You should wait about 10 minutes for MSDN Express to completely install. The progress bar will not change during that time.

The download and installation of an Express SKU will intermittently fail.

To resolve this issue

Rerun the bootstrapper from the website and try the download again.

When installing Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 to a Win9x machine, the install completes successfully.  However, the setup will corrupt the MSI Ref counting for GAC assemblies so that none of the assemblies on the machine will have an MSI refcount.  This means apps can remove shared GAC components on uninstall and the InstallOnDemand feature will fail.

To resolve this issue

Install the framework only on a Win9x test machine.

To install the .NET Framework Beta 2, you must first uninstall the .NET Framework Beta 1 that was originally installed with SQL Server 2005 Beta 2.  SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 requires the .NET Framework to work correctly.  You must uninstall SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 before you uninstall the .NET Framework Beta 1.  The recommended fix includes upgrading to SQL Server 2005 April CTP.

To resolve this issue

1.  From the Control Panel, select Add or Remove Programs.
2.  Select SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 components and click Remove to remove each component.
3.  Select the .NET Framework Beta and click Remove.
4.  From a command window, run:
     msiexec /x {71F8EFBF-09AF-418D-91F1-52707CDFA274}
5.  Install SQL Server 2005 April CTP.

If setup needs to reboot, and the Antivirus application is set to clean the temp directory on launch, necessary setup files will be deleted and setup will fail with a program-not-found error.

To resolve this issue

Change the Antivirus applications configuration to not clean the temp folder on launch or reboot before running Visual Studio Setup. Reference the Antivirus help documentation for steps on how to do this.

When reboot later is selected, if the hard drive is filled by other applications past the amount of space that is needed by Setup, an out of space error will occur in setup on reboot.

To resolve this issue

Ensure there is sufficient remaining disk space on the system when rebooting after selecting reboot later if other applications have used a lot of disk space.  The required disk space is displayed when selecting the location to install the product.

When setup is launched from a network path or a local path that exceeds 100 characters in length, setup fails due to a maximum path limitation found in Windows 2000.  Character length is not an issue on Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server.

To resolve this issue

• When installing from a network, map the network path to a local drive and install from that drive.

    For example, if the path is:

          \\computername\programs\test folder\development tools\external\Microsoft\Visual Studio 2005\beta release

    You can map this to a network drive by doing the following:

    1. From the Start menu, choose Run.

    2. Type cmd and then click OK.

    3. At the command prompt, type the following:

        net use * “\\computername\programs\test folder\development tools\external\Microsoft\Visual Studio 2005\beta 2”

Windows maps the network drive for you. The drive letter is displayed in the console window.

• When installing from a local folder, copy the contents of Visual Studio to another folder on the computer that has a total path length of less than 100 characters.

Note: If you install Visual Studio from a CD or DVD, you will not encounter any character length issues.

If you have other processes running when you launch Maintenance Mode, such as virus scanning software, these processes can slow setup considerably and give the appearance that setup has failed.

To resolve this issue

    Disable virus scanning software before launching Maintenance Mode.

1. On a Windows 2003 64-bit machine with RTM OS or SP-1 build <1184.
2. Run Redist 64-bit install.
3. Redist setup will fail with error code 25008.

Visual Studio is not supported on Windows 2003 and Windows 2003 SP-1 with build numbers less than 1184 running on 64-bit machines.

To resolve this issue

    Install a new OS (Windows 2003 64 bit with SP1 build greater than or equal to 1184).

When installing VS SQL Server Express as part of a VS install, on a machine with SQL Server already installed on it, SQL Server Express will fail to install.

To resolve this issue

    Deselect SQL Server Express from the Installation Options page (it is selected by default).

When all SQL Server Express components are uninstalled, and then SQL Server Express is reinstalled via Maintenance Mode (for VSTS, you will need to install MSXML 6.0 first), the reinstallation of SQL Server Express fails.  No cause information is written to the VS logs.

To resolve this issue

    Reboot the machine after completing the uninstall, before reinstalling SQL Server Express.

Occasionally, installation check boxes for some Crystal Reports features (and in some cases all of them) may not appear when you are in maintenance mode. This scenario occurs when all other features are uninstalled except Crystal Reports features. This scenario can also cause the check box for Visual Studio to disappear.

 

To resolve this issue

Select one or more check boxes for features or subfeature other than Crystal Reports. This will enable the check box for Visual Studio features.

 

If you install Visual C++ Express without the Graphical IDE, and later add the Graphical IDE using Maintenance Mode, the registration link normally located on the setup completion page does not appear.

To resolve this issue

To register and activate the product once the Graphical IDE is installed, go to the Help menu and choose Activate Product.

 

If you only install Command Line tools, you will not need to register, and the tools will not expire.  Once you add the Graphical IDE, registration will be required and expiration will take effect.

The graphical IDE will stop launching 30 days after first use if not activated.

To resolve this issue

There are two workarounds for this problem:

1.  Go to Help -> Activate Product to register and activate your product once the IDE is installed.
2.  Launch the IDE after it has been installed for 30 days; a dialogue will be thrown indicating that you must register and activate the product to continue using it.

 

MSDN Express installation requires Express 'Graphical IDE’ to be installed.

To resolve this issue

Always select 'Graphical IDE' when selecting 'MSDN Express Library'.

 

Upgrading using a CD with the full Windows Server 2003 SP1 install replaces the shared file mscoree.dll on the user’s machine with the .Net Framework 1.1 mscoree.dll file.  

Any applications compiled against the .Net Framework 2.0 will fail to run after the Service Pack is installed.

Note, this does not happen when updating Windows Server 2003 with just the Service Pack. This is a problem when upgrading with a CD that contains Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 rolled up together.

 

To resolve this issue

After installing the Service Pack, the .Net Framework needs to be repaired.

1.    From the Control Panel, select Add or Remove Programs .
2.    Select Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 Beta 2.
3.    Click Change/Remove.
4.    When the dialog appears, select Repair and click Next.
5.    If prompted to reboot, please reboot the machine.

1. On a Windows 2003 64-bit machine with RTM OS or SP-1 build <1184.
2. Run Redist 64-bit install.
3. Redist setup will fail with error code 25008.

Visual Studio is not supported on Windows 2003 and Windows 2003 SP-1 with build numbers less than 1184 running on 64-bit machines.

To resolve this issue

Existing ASP.NET v 1.1 applications will be disabled when installing the 64 bit .NET Framework 2.0 Beta 2 on a 64 bit OS which has IIS6 in WoW64 mode and ASP.NET 1.1 enabled. This is caused by the Framework setup incorrectly mapping the aspnet_filter to the 64 bit version and removing the v 1.1 of the aspnet_isapi extension.

To resolve this issue