Microsoft seems to want to force these to install where ever the .NET frameworks are installed. Now, I do not install anything on my Drive C: except for Windows XP Pro, and of course all the stuff apps force to be stuffed there without any good reason.
I want to install VC# and VB Express on my apps drive, which is Drive E:. Now matter how many times I uninstall the .NET frameworks completely and reinstall them to drive E:, VC# and VB are still forced to Drive C: without any option of changing it.
Is there some secret incantation that needs to be said to accomplish this? Situations like this are exactly why I dislike Microsoft applications of any sort. They take away choices I should always have, like where to install apps.
Um…If the installer for Visual Studio Express doesn’t give you a choice, you have really only have one option, which is to manually move the directory for these programs to your apps drive. Things may just work if you do this. However, more likely is you will need to edit your registry in addition. Open RegEdit and try searing for Visual Studio keys. They should be in:
If there is anything which refers to a directory, simply change the path. Note, this may still not work, or not work entirely since M$ does code things like path handling very poorly and always assumes you use the default location.
However, my bigger question is what advantage does having an apps drive in Windows even have? Since nearly everything needs registry settings (stored in C:) and installs its common libraries to C: anyway, you’d have to reinstall nearly all programs anyway if you were to suffer a system crash. Personally I use a two drive or partition scheme under windows, but only store the installer for the programs on the second.
if the drives are on seperate controllers you can see an advantage when compiling. for example my c: drive is a SATA controller and my programs drive is an IDE controller (which has the hdd on one channel and dvd on the other).
I can not say for sure if you can or can not install on a different drive. My machine only has one drive.
When I downloaded VC#, it did have a control to allow me to install to a different location that was disabled. When I clicked on the link asking why I could not install to a different location, it stated that was because I had already installed VB and they need to be installed in the same locations. It also stated that to move it to a different location, uninstall VB first and then install it in the desired location.
So have you tried uninstalling all of the Vxx apps and tried installing lets say VB first and tried to install it to a different location? If so is the location control disabled? If so did you click on the why button to see why it thinks you can not install it in a different location?
The installer is telling me that VC# and VB have to be installed on the same partition as the .NET frameworks because they depend on files in .NET.
Here is what it tells me:
"You cannot change the installation location for these products. These products have a dependency on a file already installed in another location, which prevents these products from being installed in a custom directory.
The products you are trying to install are dependent on the following programs:
* Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 SDK - ENU
To change the installation location, you must uninstall the programs listed above and then reinstall them in the location where you want all of these products to be installed."
Yes, I have, and I am doing it again. In fact, I already have the .NET SDK 2.0 installed on my apps drive (Drive E). I hate Microsoft installers. I just want to install VC# and VB so I can fiddle with some stuff and learn how to control things using them. I was going to make some examples for controlling the SSC-32 to show the differences in ways different langauges do things, or force you to do things.
It wasn’t even the SDK that was messing me up. It was the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0! I had to uninstall the .NET Framework 3.0 (because it depends on the .NET Framework 2.0) and then I could uninstall the .NET Framework 2.0 and reinstall VC# where I want it on Drive E. Then I installed VB, which was forced to go to the right place on Drive E.
I just want to install VC# and VB so I can fiddle with some stuff and learn how to control things using them. I was going to make some examples for controlling the SSC-32 to show the differences in ways different langauges do things, or force you to do things.