Before Visual Studio Community Edition : all those leftovers
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Separate products, yes. Common dependencies, also true. Plenty of common settings in the registry? Take a guess. Do you think there exists any third party dependencies that does not work with both versions at the same time? So while you really can have several versions on your computer, the older ones tend to not work as advertised anymore IMHO. The new ones neither now that I think of it. My recommendation would always be a reinstall of the computer if you want to have a newer version of VS.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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That's what I thought too. That's why it doesn't entirely make sense that when you go to install a newer version that Microsoft's installer doesn't ask you if you want to remove the old version or something.
They are separate products, you may not have value in the old version after an upgrade but many other people do. In C++, each version of VS comes with a huge set of libraries that are vastly different from each other. The libraries are part of the VS installation, not some shared common library. This is good for backwards compatibility etc. Such as how VS2012 comes with an early implementation of C++11, while VS2015 comes with a C++11/14 almost complete. Also the compilers are different in each version, and having separate versions on your machines allow you to compile for each one. In Web development or something a lot of people may not care about previous versions, but VS is an IDE that caters to "most" developers, and upgrading over a previous install isn't always appropriate. And finally VS2015 fixes most issues mentioned in this post, on installation almost every major feature is now option to set to install. Installing C++ support can be disabled in VS2015 so the install size is gigabytes smaller than before.
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Thanks for your response. To add WiX functionality in the past, you needed at least the Pro version of VS. That probably still applies - A pity. I don't think any versions of VS are native 64bit apps. Yes, they can build 64 bit apps, but the VS engines themselves have always been 32 bit.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need, when their violent passions are spent? - The Lost Horizon
Use SharpDevelop to Create and Compile your WIX projects.
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Before the VStudio Community edition released you had to install 3 different VStudio products to get all of the project types. It was crazy. Finally, I installed VStudio 2013* Community which seemed to do everything but I never uninstalled all those other products. Now, I'm going through and uninstalling Visual Studio Express 2013 For Web Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows (EDIT: uninstall has been running for 20 minutes still not done) Can't believe how slow the uninstall is. I'm glad Microsoft finally brought these all back together again. *I know, Community 2015 is available, but that's another crazy thing. Looks like you can't upgrade 2013, but you have to uinstall and install 2015 seperately.
NB: Make sure you check the Usage section: [^] Community can't be used for commercial software; only individual use, charity/education, or open source work (or in small (<250 employees) companies, five developers can use it).
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They are separate products, you may not have value in the old version after an upgrade but many other people do. In C++, each version of VS comes with a huge set of libraries that are vastly different from each other. The libraries are part of the VS installation, not some shared common library. This is good for backwards compatibility etc. Such as how VS2012 comes with an early implementation of C++11, while VS2015 comes with a C++11/14 almost complete. Also the compilers are different in each version, and having separate versions on your machines allow you to compile for each one. In Web development or something a lot of people may not care about previous versions, but VS is an IDE that caters to "most" developers, and upgrading over a previous install isn't always appropriate. And finally VS2015 fixes most issues mentioned in this post, on installation almost every major feature is now option to set to install. Installing C++ support can be disabled in VS2015 so the install size is gigabytes smaller than before.
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I expect that still doesn't include SSDT and SSDTBI -- correct me if I'm wrong. Regardless, why would anyone want "everything"? At work, I have VS 2012 Ultimate. I do only a very small amount of WinForms development in C#. I mostly do SSIS, which means adding SSDTBI. Also we use TFS. Everything else included in VS Ultimate is wasted on me. I could probably use VS Express with SSDTBI and access TFS only through the command line and Shell Extensions (or whatever they're called) -- I already have my own console utilities to do certain things in TFS via the API.
SQL Server Data Tools in Visual Studio 2015[^]:
You must have an existing install of Visual Studio 2015 Professional, Enterprise, Express for Web, Express for Desktop or Express for Windows 10 to apply this update.
Doesn't mention Community edition, but if it works in Pro, then it works in Community. SSDT-BI for Visual Studio 2015 isn't out yet. It's expected some time after SQL Server 2016 is released. Consider yourself corrected. :)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
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Thanks for your response. To add WiX functionality in the past, you needed at least the Pro version of VS. That probably still applies - A pity. I don't think any versions of VS are native 64bit apps. Yes, they can build 64 bit apps, but the VS engines themselves have always been 32 bit.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need, when their violent passions are spent? - The Lost Horizon
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SQL Server Data Tools in Visual Studio 2015[^]:
You must have an existing install of Visual Studio 2015 Professional, Enterprise, Express for Web, Express for Desktop or Express for Windows 10 to apply this update.
Doesn't mention Community edition, but if it works in Pro, then it works in Community. SSDT-BI for Visual Studio 2015 isn't out yet. It's expected some time after SQL Server 2016 is released. Consider yourself corrected. :)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
Richard Deeming wrote:
Consider yourself corrected
No, I thought the OP was saying that Community came with everything already included. So I'll consider my argument supported.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Visual Studio has become so bloated it's unreal.
I know and it's unfortunate that installing a new version just leaves the old versions out there. Well, I guess they could say it is for compatibility reasons. Anyways, the Desktop version is still uninstalling and the progress bar hasn't moved even though it's been like 35 minutes or something.
Quote:
I know and it's unfortunate that installing a new version just leaves the old versions out there.
That would require everyone to upgrade at the same time so that Solutions can be loaded. Some people are very slow adopters. From an aesthetic point of view, the last version I liked was 2010. All the new versions are flat and should have come standard with an intravenous caffeine dispenser. :java:
Cheers, Mike Fidler "I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright "I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright "I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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I cannot find any reference to the Windows Installer on the chart. I have also tried Google, but cannot find a direct answer to my simple question: "Can I add the Windows Installer XML (Wix) to the Community Edition of Visual Studio 2015?" If any one knows the answer, please let us know. It's kind of important to me. In previous versions of VS you had to have at least the Pro version for this plug-in. I do not want to go through the whole rigmarole of installing VS 2015 Community Edition, just to find that I cannot have WiX!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need, when their violent passions are spent? - The Lost Horizon
As far as I know, Community Edition is identical with Professional when it comes to features. I remember reading that the only difference is the license. I haven't used WiX, but I have no problem installing all other kind of add-ons, free or paid. I see no reason why Windows Installer should behave differently.
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Your PC is 10 or more years old? I suggest you talk to your boss about a new machine! :)
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need, when their violent passions are spent? - The Lost Horizon
:confused: My PC's only 3 years old; but I have versions of VS as old as 03 installed on it. I've got 03, 08, 10, 12, and 15. My next PC here definitely won't have 08 or 12 since I've upgraded everything I care about that was done on it to 2010 solutions and never used 2012 in production. I might be able to get rid of 2010 too by upgrading all my solutions again to 2015. I'll still need 03 for regression checking though; the version of the app build in that uses a custom grid that won't compile to newer versions of the framework. (Not sure why, I spent about a day trying to make it work in 08 (05?) years ago before cutting my losses and porting to the new far less sucky .net 2.x datagridview class.)
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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Before the VStudio Community edition released you had to install 3 different VStudio products to get all of the project types. It was crazy. Finally, I installed VStudio 2013* Community which seemed to do everything but I never uninstalled all those other products. Now, I'm going through and uninstalling Visual Studio Express 2013 For Web Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows (EDIT: uninstall has been running for 20 minutes still not done) Can't believe how slow the uninstall is. I'm glad Microsoft finally brought these all back together again. *I know, Community 2015 is available, but that's another crazy thing. Looks like you can't upgrade 2013, but you have to uinstall and install 2015 seperately.
A word of warning: I've installed VS 2015 community a couple of months ago for trial purposes, with VS 2010 installed on the system. I had no problems, and could use either. Now that we've decided to purchase VS 2015 Pro, I've uninstalled VS 2015. It appeared to work, although, as you noted, the uninstallation rocess took quite some time. (~10-15 minutes - I didn't really check) Then I started VS 2010 again and loaded a solution: unfortunately, the solution wouldn't load: it claimed that a dependency, .NET 4.0 was missing! I checked program installations, but there still was a dotnet 4.0.1 installation that I could see! Even after restarting, dotnet 4.0 was still being shown. Yet VS 2010 kept complaining that it was missing: clearly, the VS 2015 uninstallation must have broken something, although it wasn't clear what. To cut the long story short: it wasn't .NET 4.0 that was missing, it was the -NET Multi-targeting Pack - whatever that is supposed to be! I got it back by 'repairing' the VS 2010 installation. tldr; You can install VS 2015 side by side with an earlier version, but if you ever uninstall it (or the previous version), you may need to repair the remaining installation(s). On a sidenote: the solution in question is 100% C/C++ unmanaged code. no idea why there is any link to .Net at all...
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Unreal is actually still a separate installation :D
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Sascha Lefèvre wrote:
Unreal is actually still a separate installation
And you want to talk about bloated... The last upgrade from 4.10.1 to 4.10.2 was a 2.2 gig download. :(
:D
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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A word of warning: I've installed VS 2015 community a couple of months ago for trial purposes, with VS 2010 installed on the system. I had no problems, and could use either. Now that we've decided to purchase VS 2015 Pro, I've uninstalled VS 2015. It appeared to work, although, as you noted, the uninstallation rocess took quite some time. (~10-15 minutes - I didn't really check) Then I started VS 2010 again and loaded a solution: unfortunately, the solution wouldn't load: it claimed that a dependency, .NET 4.0 was missing! I checked program installations, but there still was a dotnet 4.0.1 installation that I could see! Even after restarting, dotnet 4.0 was still being shown. Yet VS 2010 kept complaining that it was missing: clearly, the VS 2015 uninstallation must have broken something, although it wasn't clear what. To cut the long story short: it wasn't .NET 4.0 that was missing, it was the -NET Multi-targeting Pack - whatever that is supposed to be! I got it back by 'repairing' the VS 2010 installation. tldr; You can install VS 2015 side by side with an earlier version, but if you ever uninstall it (or the previous version), you may need to repair the remaining installation(s). On a sidenote: the solution in question is 100% C/C++ unmanaged code. no idea why there is any link to .Net at all...
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Ok, I am curious: Can you add plugins like the Windows Installer XML (WiX) to the Community Edition? What about Microsoft's Ribbon plug-in? I have no use for it, if the answer is negative. I suppose the 2015 versions of VS are still native 32bit apps, not 64? Later edit: See this thread: [^]
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need, when their violent passions are spent? - The Lost Horizon
Yes, you can use WiX and other extensions, such as Laurent Kempe's excellent Git Diff Margin, with VS Community Edition. Note that WiX toolset does not currently appear in Tools/ Extensions and Updates for VS2015 (any edition); it must be downloaded directly from WiX Toolset[^]
