Your feedback on Beta2 install experience

We released Beta 2 Visual Studio Express products 6 weeks ago.  We have been listening to your feedback through forums, Watson feedback data (you can opt-in such program at the beginning of the setup) etc. We published a tool to help uninstalling Beta/CTP program. I appreciated your feedback to make VS 2005 better. I am wondering your experience/thoughts in a few areas after Beta 2 release. 

• Did the download and install succeed the first time?  If not, how many times did it take?
• Did you come across a situation where you decided to cancel the download or install?  If so, why?
• What do you like/hate about Express?  (It could be setup specific or not related to Express setup)?
• What do you wish to see in Express that is not there (It could be setup specific or not related to setup)?
• What do you think of the uninstall tool https://mscomapps/fwlink/edit.asp?linkid=47065

The cancel one is particularly interesting to me, since we can see occurrences of this in the Watson data, but don't get a lot of visibility into why this happened and whether the setup is broken somehow. I looking forward to hearing what folks experienced. 

Thanks, Hong Gao

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 12, 2005
  I'm not sure it's the right place, but I encountered a strange bug, probably related to BITS not the setup: With a "dynamic proxy" setting in IE (automatic configuration script), I was unable to install the product (no download at all). I had to fix the proxy to the right one and restart the service.
  
  I guess it's not the expected behaviour.
  
  Thanks for any comment!
  
  -- poubelle@alrj.org

• Anonymous
  June 12, 2005
  I downloaded Beta 2 of C# Express the first day it was available to the general public, but had to cancel the download several times because I only got 3 kB/sec.

• Anonymous
  June 13, 2005
  I had no problems with the install, while I forget the speed I recieved, it must have been pretty good as I don't recall waiting any excessive amount of time.
  
  I didn't start using VS until VS2k3 and thought it was one of the worst installs I've ever seen (you need disc 1-3 and only during installation did I learn you need this "pre-requisists disc" which isn't even given a formal number).
  
  I think one of you guys over there at MS realized the install was so ghastly because I think VS2k5 has the best installer I've ever used, lots of metadata during install, and a simple no nonsense install.
  
  Good work.

• Anonymous
  June 13, 2005
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 13, 2005
  Thank YOU for letting me know. Your feedback weather it is through Watson or forums truly matters. We love to hear all comments, concerns and suggestions. The positive comments encourage the team tremendously. The opposite ones give us opportunities to learn how to improve.
  Below are a couple of quick notes on some of the comments.
  - For initial slow download speed issue is known and it seems to be caused by cable company's infrastructure after an investigation. Please do let us know if you still see such problem
  - For BITS errors, more help could be found at my post http://blogs.msdn.com/hgao/archive/2005/05.aspx with issue 7 "what if I have download error?" http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/troubleshoot_guide.rtf

• Anonymous
  June 14, 2005
  I've mentioned my installation experiences @ Aaron Stebner's blog.
  
  Express Editions:
  http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/05/27/422738.aspx
  SQL Server 2005:
  http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/06/02/424483.aspx
  VS 2005 beta 2: The installation went like a breeze. But i made a fresh install of Win Server 2003. So, it had no previous bits of 2.0. And comparing to VS 2002 and VS 2003, VS 2005 got installed way faster.

• Anonymous
  June 16, 2005
  For those who have installed Beta 2 (especially those who had already Beta 1 or a CTP installed), the...

• Anonymous
  June 16, 2005
  All I can say is ARRRRRGGGG
  
  The day it came out went and logged into MSDN started the download and well it was very slow, to be expected I figured you guys were doing a lot of downloading that day with sql server and everything.
  
  >>Did the download and install succeed the first time? If not, how many times did it take?
  No it didn't go the first time for some reason I only got half of the file. I think too many downloads were going on first day. No biggy redownloaded. Infact I redownloaded every single night except maybe one or two nights every single one Virtual PC wouldn't recognize it as a valid iso image. Nero DvD burning software would recognize it and burn it every time, install would fail every single time on permcalc.exe every single burn, install failed right there. I have never had any problems with burning CD's before or ISO images, I burned XP and several other ISO images even SQL Server 2005 with same software and rom drive. I never ever got it installed. Finally at the .net user group this week MS had sent us a bunch of packaged CD's to give away. I could install it just fine from there.
  More info on http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=16744
  
  >> Did you come across a situation where you decided to cancel the download or install? If so, why?
  Didn't have a choice as problems above list when the permcalc.exe failed to copy there was only a retry or cancel button. Retry didn't work cancel rolled back install(Not cleanly either I might add).
  
  What do you like/hate about Express?
  I am hoping this is not all about express, my problems were with the full VS in Beta 2.
  
  What do you think of the uninstall tool http://mscomapps/fwlink/edit.asp?linkid=47065
  Didn't use it, used a fresh XP SP2 Virtual PC each time.

• Anonymous
  June 16, 2005
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 16, 2005
  The comment has been removed

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  September 01, 2005
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• Anonymous
  November 17, 2006
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• Anonymous
  January 23, 2007
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• Anonymous
  August 14, 2007
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