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Installing Visual Studio 2005 SP1

I have had a lot of trouble installing Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2005, so I wanted to record and share my solution.

My machine is a virtual machine running Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition. This setup is required for SharePoint 2003 development. I also have installed: Visual Studio.NET Enterprise Architect 2003; Visual Studio 2005 Premier Partner Edition; Visual Studio 2005 Team Explorer; Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite; SQL Server 2005; SQL Server Desktop Engine; Microsoft Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.

When I went to Microsoft Update and tried the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 install, it would take a LONG time, then fail with “Error Code: 0x64C“. I discovered this was due to not having the original install disks available. After fixing that, I hit out of disk space issues. After fixing that, I hit error saying some random file "did not pass the digital signature check". After installing a patch for large installs, I got it to work.

Here are the steps to follow if you are having any problems installing on Windows 2003.

1. Clear up 4gb of disk space on c drive.
2. Ensure that your original Visual Studio 2005 install disks are available in the same location they were when you originally installed it. I had used install files copied to the Administrators desktop, so I had to put the files onto another hard drive (“e:“ to keep free space high on “c:“). Then I had to fixup the references in the registry changing all references to the Team Edition's VS_TE and VS_FS directories to “e:\disks\VS_TE“ and “e:\disks\VS_FS“. To do this I ran regedit and did a find on “VS_TE“ and “VS_FS“ then changed their paths.
3. Run WindowsServer2003-KB925336-x86-ENU.exe to patch the OS to allow for large installs. The details, and workarounds for Windows XP may be found at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=925336
4. From Command Prompt: type “mkdir C:\TMP” and “set TMP=C:\TMP“ (Note that I did the same with TEMP, but I think only TMP was used for this update).
5. From the same Command Prompt: Run VS80sp1-KB926601-X86-ENU.exe to install SP1. This file might already be on your machine if you auto downloaded the update or tried through Microsoft Update. Check your hard drive first (probably somewhere below C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution), otherwise download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BB4A75AB-E2D4-4C96-B39D-37BAF6B5B1DC&displaylang=en
6. Wait a LONG time, and confirm that you want to update each Visual Studio 2005 install that it finds.

I hope this helps. It will certainly help me remember the steps in the future!

posted on Thursday, May 03, 2007 8:47 AM