Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Vista Users - Uninstall Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 before upgrading to Windows 7

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Vista Users - Uninstall Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 before upgrading to Windows 7

Posted 2009-08-06 10:42 AM in Win7.

Disclaimer: I do work for Microsoft, but is my opinion. If this walkthrough causes your ferret emotional distress, I'm sorry. Who is this? Stop calling! Jimmy no live here! You no call back!

I'm an early adopter so I've been running Beta 1 of .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 on a Vista machine. However, Beta 1 of .NET 4 doesn't survive an upgrade to Windows 7 and leaves the .NET Framework in a goofy and unfixable state. Beta 2 won't have this problem.

So, in a nutshell if you're running .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 on Vista you've got two options*.

1. Uninstall, Upgrade, Reinstall

Uninstall Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1
Uninstall .NET Framework 4
Upgrade to Windows 7
Reinstall .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1

Or:

2. Clean Install

You can do a clean install of Windows 7, which is what I did anyway, as I like my Major OS Upgrades to be fresh.

When you're talking about OS Upgrades and Early Beta Software, if you really want to be confident, I say clean install.

It an unfortunate Beta 1 bug, so tell your early-adopter developer friends (or blogs) so they don't have trouble upgrading.

Related Links

* You might be running Windows 7 RC and thinking to do an unsupported upgrade to Windows 7 RTM. If so, remember, it's not supported, but you'll have this problem upgrading too, so uninstall Dev10b1/.NET4 first.

Here's technical details on how to uninstall VS 2010 Beta 1 and .NET 4 Beta 1:

Uninstall TFS Object Model (This step is Visual Studio 2010 Team Suite only)
1. From Add/Remove, uninstall Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 1 Object Model
2. Uninstall Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1
1. From Add/Remove, uninstall all instances of Visual Studio 2010 (Team, Pro, etc. You likely have just one, but one can't be sure.)
2. Be sure to see the Visual Studio Setup wizard through to completion.
3. Uninstall .NET Framework 4 Beta 1
1. From Add/Remove, uninstall in this order:
  1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended Beta 1 - Language Pack
  2. Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile Beta 1 - Language Pack
  3. Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended Beta 1
  4. Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile Beta 1
Reboot
Uninstall C++ 2010 Redistributable
1. From Add/Remove, uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Beta 1 Redistributable (x86 and/or x64)
Reboot

Hope this beta hassle saves you a worse hassle when it comes time for you to upgrade to Windows 7. Again this won't be a problem in .NET 4 Beta 2.

Thursday, August 06, 2009 10:32:49 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

how about a post on recommended install order/process for a fresh win7 install?

josh

Thursday, August 06, 2009 1:03:25 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I'm enjoying your disclaimers more and more. just sayin..

Ian

Thursday, August 06, 2009 1:35:04 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I have Windows 7 RC with VS 2010 already installed. Do I need to uninstall VS 2010 before upgrading to Windows 7 RTM?

Tony

Thursday, August 06, 2009 1:57:56 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Tony - Yes, you need to uninstall first. Note the * in the post above.

Ian - Thanks, they are the highlight of my day. :)

Scott Hanselman

Thursday, August 06, 2009 7:17:02 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Wow! Another 2 days of your life gone.

Should have used a VM for those beta suckers

dm3281

Thursday, August 06, 2009 8:05:15 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

@dm3281 - It's true! If you're going to try out anything that's a REALLY early beta, just use a VM or Boot To VHD (which is what I do).

Scott Hanselman

Thursday, August 06, 2009 11:17:31 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Missed this bullet because I'm still on VS2008 -- but thanks for the info.

Timothy Lee Russell

Friday, August 07, 2009 12:45:06 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Couldn't your disclaimer be offensive to some people?

Neil

Friday, August 07, 2009 2:26:18 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

@Neil: Your comment offended me - see you in court ;)

Kent Boogaart

Friday, August 07, 2009 10:34:32 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I've spent 4 hours trying to remove Visual Studio 10 beta and .Net framework 4.0 from my system after upgrading to Win 7, all the microsoft installer/uninstaller processes where hanging in a loop ... but after 4 hours of tweaking reg keys, and killing installer processes to manage to uninstall VS 10, I can't really say how I've managed to do it ... Everything seems fine right now and everything else is working properly with no issues. Lucky me I guess, a full reinstall of everything would have taken me 2 days not 4 hours.

Pop catalin

Friday, August 07, 2009 1:58:34 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I did an "upgrade" from Windows 7 RC to RTM and I have the same issue. I thought this issue was for Vista upgrades only?

Sam Gentile

Friday, August 07, 2009 2:08:08 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Sam - Note this is pointed out in the post above. Sorry you missed it:

You might be running Windows 7 RC and thinking to do an unsupported upgrade to Windows 7 RTM. If so, remember, it's not supported, but you'll have this problem upgrading too, so uninstall Dev10b1/.NET4 first.

Scott Hanselman

Friday, August 07, 2009 2:10:34 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Neil - Seriously, who would that disclaimer offend? It's an old SNL skit.

Scott Hanselman

Saturday, August 08, 2009 6:07:57 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Check this thread: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxsetup/thread/a5d827d7-05b4-41b9-9565-e9e4abb12e66

nobugz

Saturday, August 08, 2009 1:59:18 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

So how do I resolve this issue if I already upgraded..?

I'm about to just wait for the next VS 2010 beta lol.

MarcelW

Saturday, August 08, 2009 2:00:49 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I managed to uninstall it _after_ the upgrade.. But now when I try to reinstall it the setup stops working when installing Microsoft Help 3.0 Beta. Tried 3 times..

MarcelW

Saturday, August 08, 2009 2:20:32 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

MarcelW - I'm sorry, if you've already upgraded, you're in a bad state. You'll have to repave. You can use the migration tools to bring your settings along with you.

Scott Hanselman

Sunday, August 09, 2009 3:00:12 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Fix! (Works on my machine!!)

I also did the upgrade before seeing your warning, Scott, so I went ahead and worked out a fix for the problem. It's not for the faint-hearted, but you can find the instructions in my 13-step post on this thread:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxsetup/thread/a5d827d7-05b4-41b9-9565-e9e4abb12e66

http://waxmyduck.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 12:53:22 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I had this issue a few months ago and reported it but got nowhere. I was told it was unreproducible and no one else had reported it. Sorry you had a hard time but at least I now know it wasn't me doing something stupid.

Joe

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 4:25:19 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Addendum: I managed to get Visual Studio 2010 working again by doing a repair option. (Start > Run > AppWiz.cpl > Visual Studio 2010 > Uninstall and choose repair.

Joe

Thursday, August 13, 2009 6:21:23 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

All very well but what if you cant uninstall .Net Framework 4 Extended Beta 1, lot of people seem to be experiencing that pretty frustrating problem including me. Half way through the uninstall, the app reports that "Microsoft Common Language Runtime native compiler has stopped working" and the promise that "Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available", one wonders how I'll be notified?? Dont really want to repave the damn thing but looks like no other option.

Another person reporting the issue below and from the response it doesnt look like there will be amy white smoke soon:

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=478238

Kieran

Thursday, October 08, 2009 4:49:36 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Add Sql Server 2008 to your list of uninstall items for I ignored the W7 warning about uninstalling it and well, it failed. .Net 4 only complicated it.

My blog on my travails: SQL Server SP1 Setup: Does it really need a beta version of .Net 4?.

Thanks Scott.

William Wegerson

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 5:46:49 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I am not sure I even know what the word 'upgrade' means anymore.

Make it clean peeps!

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawn9gB8kkaqeXvuRiPxLUr1y9GX5nr4kaSU

Saturday, October 31, 2009 7:40:09 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Thanks for this post.
I was struggling with uninstalling vs 2010 beta few days ago. Your post was very helpful, however I had to modify order of steps presented here.
More details here: http://codepark.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-uninstall-visual-studio-2010.html.

empi

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