This chronicle describes the migration from the .NET 2.0 Beta 2 to VS2005 RTM on my bread-n-butter Windows 2003 development server. It has been faithfully transcribed by your humble cyberbuddy on this date, November 29, 2005. All events depicted in this chronicle really happened.
I've been using the .NET 2.0 Beta 2 on this server since it was released in May. I had not installed SQL Server 2005 at any time, so the plan was to remove the VS2005 beta 2.0 and install the VS2005 Professional RTM from the MSDN Subscriber Download ISO images. Since Sharepoint Services 2.0 is a staple in my work--and because it was hosed when I installed the .NET 2.0 Beta 2--I wanted to make sure it was running again on this particular server for real world VS2005 development. Finally, I wanted to install the MSDN Library with VS2005 Visual Studio, since I had no MSDN with the beta and really missed it.
Remove the .NET 2.0 beta, get Sharepoint Services 2.0 running, install VS2005 Professional RTM along with the MSDN library from the MSDN Subscriber Download images. Got it.
I began by running the VS2005 pre-RTM Uninstall Tool. It took a long time to run, but it had a lot to remove. Here's a screenshot of the uninstall. Please note that being Old School, I rebooted after each step and about 8 times total, a habit I still highly recommend.
Now it was time to revive SharePoint Services 2.0. With the Beta 2.0 removed I re-applied the Sharepoint SP2. Rebooted. Still hosed. So I uninstalled Sharepoint Services completely, reinstalled it and applied the SP2. We were cooking with WSS again!
Getting close now. I extracted the VS2005 CD1 and CD2 and MSDN Library CDs 1, 2 and 3 ISO files into separate subdirectories with IsoBuster. Time to do the VS2005 setup.exe hokey pokey and shake it all about.
D'oh! No Windows 2003 Service Pack 1. My development server isn't connected to the Internet, so it doesn't receive automatic updates. Yeah, I know. I should have SP'd it before now. Still, I had to break away from the action to download and install the 337MB W2K3 SP1 before continuing.
Okay, SP1 applied. VS2005 CD1 setup.exe. I selected the Default setup option, but wanted to install it to "d:\MS\Microsoft Visual Studio 8" rather than to the "c:\program files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8" default location. Wait a minute. d:\MS\Microsoft Visual Studio 8 was already there, complete with content files. That told me the pre-RTM uninstall tool left a few fragments behind. Not a problem. I deleted the folders and continued with the installation.
Then I started seeing THIS! Error: Source file not found: d:\temp\vs2005install\vsprod1\_15780_RTL_whatever.cab. Over and over and friggen' over again. Fortunately, all of the missing files were on the second disc image and located in the \vsprod2 directory. Copy, paste. Copy, paste. After about 40 copy and pastes I said "screw it" and copied in bulk from vsprod2 to vsprod1, making sure I didn't overwrite anything not already listed in the vsprod1 directory. That did it. The installation completed.
If you are installing from the MSDN downloads, the following tip is golden:
On the Visual Studio CD1 download page it says, "If you are extracting the Visual Studio CD files to a single folder, you must extract CD1 last. Select Yes if prompted to overwrite any existing files." It's in red font and what it really says is "Extract the Visual Studio CD files to a single folder or misery will surely follow." Same applies to the MSDN CD images. Write it down. Burn it into your forehead.
Here on the Morning After, we've got the VS2005 Professional RTM compiling my .NET 2.0 Beta 2 Windows Forms app without a peep, we've got ASP.NET apps running in both .NET 1.1 and 2.0, SQL Server 2000 is happily serving up data to anyone who asks, and Sharepoint Services 2.0 is still online after having successfully grafted-in the .NET 2.0 DLLs.
Here's wishing for many future chapters to the VS2005 Love Story, and may the Honeymoon be a long one.