Installing Visual Studio for C++ Development

Installing Visual Studio for .NET development is pretty easy: Install Visual Studio and the latest service pack. You’re done.

Installing Visual Studio for C++ development is fraught with problems (ok that’s perhaps a bit dramatic). In most cases you not only need Visual Studio and its service pack, but you also need the latest Windows SDK. Since Visual Studio SP1 was released I’ve had some of my installations fail, or worse, just corrupt my build environment. I couldn’t figure out why it would fail some of the time. I eventually pinged Stephan (STL) on the Visual C++ team who pointed out that the Windows SDK installation corrupts the SP1 build environment. Anyway, here is the order in which you must install everything in order for it to work.

1. Visual Studio 2008

2. Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008

3. Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1

If you did step 3 before step 2 you need to rerun step 3 which is extremely tedious. Also, since the Visual Studio installation is so complex, I’ve found its less painful to simply reinstall Windows than to try upgrading or repairing a broken installation.

If you follow the steps above you shouldn’t have any problems. Hope that helps.

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Published Wednesday, October 01, 2008 2:35 PM by KennyKerr

Comments

# re: Installing Visual Studio for C++ Development

Wednesday, October 01, 2008 10:17 AM by Nish

Whew. I am glad I am not the only one who reformatted/reinstalled Windows so I can get VS running fine again :-)

# re: Installing Visual Studio for C++ Development

Wednesday, October 01, 2008 4:51 PM by Leo Davidson

As it happens, I installed 2008 and SP1 on my machine at work today, without installing the SDK.

Luckily it will be about 10 years before work move from XP, judging by how long it took them to move from NT4 to XP (skipping Win2k). (That isn't a comment on Vista. I like Vista. The place I work at just takes ages to move OS, which is understandable given the effort and pros & cons really.)

It does make me wonder how long the problem has been known about and why there isn't a fixed SDK installer yet? (No doubt there is a fix but it's being tested forever to ensure it doesn't cause a problem like... the one that's already out there, slipped through testing, and needs fixing. :) I wish MS had shorter fix/test/release cycles and/or public betas for people willing to risk a potential problem to solve a definite one.)

It's a bit frustrating in general that the SDK isn't more integrated into Visual Studio. Obviously it has to remain a separate product for people using other IDEs, but VS could do a better job of managing the SDK installs and checking for updates. As it is now it can be quite confusing as you end up with a mess in the include/lib directory settings and you have several copies of the SDK files in different places.

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up. It'll save me some hassle if I ever reinstall as I would naturally get VS installed and all up-to-date before thinking about the SDK.