Fixing my VS2005 RTM install

After downloading Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition RTM from MSDN I debated whether or not to install it since I would have to go without all the cool WinFX goodies like Avalon, Linq, and Windows Workflow Foundation. In the end I broke down and decided to move to the RTM.

In addition to the 24-step pre-RTM uninstall instructions you will need to uninstall a bunch of other things like the Linq Visual Studio extensions (pull up the local documentation HTML file and click the link that pulls up the folder with the Linq VS uninstall bat file), Linq, Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, WinFS, WinFX, and I think I'm forgetting some more of them. Make sure you pass through your entire Add/Remove Programs list, because some of them aren't grouped under Microsoft.

In my case, I overlooked Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation until after VS 2005 Beta 2 was uninstalled. Oops! But it appeared to uninstall just fine once I discovered that.

So I went through the Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition RTM install and everything went smoothly until right towards the end when a dialog popped up telling me that Visual Studio 2005 encountered an error, and would I like to send it to Microsoft? This error occured while the installer was on the "Executing action:HxMerge_VSCC_v80" step. I continued with the installation, and it appeared to complete successfully.

But when I tried to start Visual Studio 2005, the splash screen appeared and then the devenv process went away! I noticed the splash screen showed Microsoft Workflow Tools on the list of loaded modules... I Googled the HxMerge installer step above and found someone else with the same problem with an earlier version. So I tried starting devenv with the /safemode switch, and sure enough it started! I went to Tools -> Options and saw a configuration section for the Windows Workflow Designer, which threw an error when I tried to expand it.

So, I installed Windows Workflow Foundation and Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation on top of my VS2005 RTM installation, uninstalled both of the WWF items in Add/Remove Programs, and now VS2005 is happy again!

And no, VS2005 RTM doesn't work with the WWF designer. It reports an error and gives you an option to not load the module in the future.

Hopefully RTM-friendly versions of Avalon, WWF, and all the other WinFX goodies show up soon! If an RTM-friendly Linq update is possible without destabilizing the C# compiler, that would also be cool.