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Installation Notes contains vital information about installing Microsoft® Visual Studio™ 6.0 -- Development System for Windows and the Internet, and its family of development products. Information in this file may apply to all or a number of the products shipped in the Visual Studio suite. This Readme updates information provided in the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 documentation.
Installation Notes is one of a "family" of Readmes shipped with the suite. All product Readme files reside at the root of Visual Studio compact disc 1. These Readme files (install.htm, plus several others called readmeXX.htm, where XX signifies a product) use current Web technology so users can find and view their information quickly. They may be viewed with a Web browser, such as Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4, or in Notepad.
Note Be sure all headings in the table of contents are expanded when you search this Readme for a topic. In this way, you will know when the search finds the topic among the TOC headings.
Installing Over Visual Studio Beta, Pre-Release, and Technical Preview Installations
"Side by Side Installation": Installing Multiple Versions of Visual Studio 6.0 Products on the Same Computer
Warning When Installing on Dual-Boot Computers
Installing Visual Studio from a Shared CD Drive
Let Microsoft Internet Explorer Setup Finish Before Proceeding with Visual Studio Installation
When Microsoft Internet Explorer Setup Installs Older Versions of MDAC Files
Special Installation Instructions for Computers with Non-U.S. Versions of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer
BiDi Systems Must Have Localized Version of Internet Explorer 4.0 SP 1 Before English Visual Studio 6.0 Is Installed
When the Installation Wizard Looks for A Web Publishing Wizard Disc
Installing Client Tools and Server Components After Visual Studio 6.0 Products Are Installed
How to Contact Technical Support
Minimum Requirements for Installation and Operation of Server-Side Components
"Setup Already Running" Message Shows Up During Installation of Server-Side Components
Installing Server Components on Windows 95
Known Compatibility Issues with SQL Server 6.5 and Windows NT Option Pack 4.0
For ASP Debugging, Install IIS Patch After Installing BackOffice
Using SQL Debugging Services on a Computer with SQL Server 6.5 and Visual C++ 5.0 or Higher Installed
Windows 95 Registry Size: 64 KB Limitation May Cause A Warning During Visual Studio Installation
Disable Autologon Before Running Visual Studio 6.0 Setup
An Internet Connection Dialog Box May Appear at Startup of Windows or Other Applications
Installing Server Components on Windows 95
For ASP Debugging on Windows 95/98 Computers, Install IIS Patch After Installing BackOffice
Installation Wizard May Not Restart After PWS Is Installed on Windows 95 Computers
Installing Microsoft FrontPage 98 Extensions on Some Windows 95 Computers
Special Installation Instructions for Computers with Non-U.S. Versions of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer
BiDi Systems Must Have Localized Version of Internet Explorer 4.0 SP 1 Before English Visual Studio 6.0 Is Installed
NEC PC 98 Installation Issue
Install Requirements
How to Install the Microsoft Data Access SDK 2.0
Before Using SQL Server 6.5 or Older with MDAC 2.0
When Microsoft Internet Explorer Setup Installs Older Versions of MDAC Files
This section lists installation-related information on programs and files shipped with Visual Studio 6.0.
Do not install the final release of Visual Studio 6.0 on computers that have pre-release, technical preview, or beta versions of any Visual Studio product. File copy targets and registration settings have evolved over the development cycle. Installing the final version on computers with a technology preview, pre-release, or other beta version can result in some final components not being installed, while the earlier beta version remain on the system. The outcome could be an unstable product or worse, an unstable system.
Reformat the hard disk and reinstall the operating system before returning a machine used as a beta test platform into the production environment.
Visual Studio products with the same version and in the same language—Visual C++ and Visual Basic version 6.0 in English, for example—can be installed separately on the same workstation. Such installations are supported by Microsoft. The Visual Studio 6.0 Installation Wizard detects if other versions of the 6.0 product line have been installed on a developer's workstation.
Mixing different language versions, point releases, or product tiers on the same workstation is generally not supported. This means that the installation may fail, one or more of Visual Studio 6.0 products may not work even if the installation succeeds, or in the worst case you may not be able to uninstall any of the products completely.
If the Wizard generates a warning during installation, the safest course of action is to uninstall the Visual Studio 6.0 product before proceeding. The detection scheme checks for the following scenarios:
| Product | Supported Installation |
| Visual Basic | Install to two different locations. |
| Visual C++ | No side-by-side installation is supported. |
| Visual FoxPro | Install to two different locations. |
| Visual InterDev | Install to the same location. You must reinstall after uninstalling one version. |
| Visual J++ | Install to the same location. You must reinstall after uninstalling one version. |
| Visual SourceSafe | Install to the same location. You must reinstall after uninstalling one version. Note The UI language chosen when you run SourceSafe will be based on the system's language settings. If that language is not installed for SourceSafe, it will use English instead. |
| MSDN | Install to default directory. |
If you have a dual-boot computer and want to install and run Visual Studio programs with both operating systems, you must install these products into separate directories.
Installing a Visual Studio product, such as Visual C++ or Visual Basic, multiple times on the same directory can result in undefined behavior. Installing a product to the same location from each operating system is sometimes done to save disk space, but it will lead to problems and is not supported.
For example, if you install onto the same directory, you will not be able to fully uninstall the product from both systems. Uninstalling on one system may result in undefined behavior, including the removal of system files from the other system.
If you are installing Visual Studio 6.0 from a shared compact disc drive, name the share with less than nine characters and with no embedded spaces in the name.
During Visual Studio setup, the Installation Wizard will install Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack (SP) 1. Near the end of the Internet Explorer setup, the Internet Explorer setup wizard will restart your computer. The Internet Explorer setup wizard will automatically restart and continue copying updated files and configuring your system.
On some computers, the Visual Studio Installation Wizard may also start while the Internet Explorer setup wizard is finishing this task. You must let the Internet Explorer setup wizard complete its processing before continuing with Visual Studio setup.
Specifically, it is vital that you do not continue with setup to the point of restarting the computer again. Restarting the computer during the final configuration phase of Internet Explorer will corrupt the Visual Studio setup. The Internet Explorer setup wizard shows progress indicators while in its final phase. When these progress indicators disappear, it is safe to proceed with the Visual Studio Installation Wizard.
The Microsoft Data Access (MDAC) files installed by Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 setup may be older than the MDAC files installed by Visual Studio 6.0 products. If you install Internet Explorer on a computer that already has Visual Studio 6.0, and you get a message asking you to confirm whether you want to install older versions of MDAC files, choose to keep the newer components currently on your computer.
When installing Visual Studio 6.0 or the Visual J++ Technology Preview 2, if you get a dialog box asking you to insert the Web Publishing Wizard disc, close the dialog box and proceed with the installation.
Neither Visual Studio nor Visual J++ ships a Web Publishing Wizard on a separate disc. Users may get this message when they are installing Visual Studio or Visual J++ on computers that have Temp directories set to removable drives, such as an Iomega Jaz drive.
After your Visual Studio or Visual J++ installation is complete, if you want to install the Web Publishing Wizard, do the following:
The setup procedure is made up of several components. These components are not launched by Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. When you use Add/Remove Programs, you will only get to the portion of setup specific to the product installation.
To install any of the following tools, you must run the full setup.
To install any of the listed tools after you have installed any Visual Studio 6.0 products, run setup.exe from compact disc 1. This action will start the full setup in a "maintenance mode." You will have all of the options you had when you first installed the Visual Studio 6.0 product, but you will not have to go through all of the preliminary dialog boxes.
The online documentation includes complete information on how to get support and support options, including free support and online support. Click the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 icon and open the Visual Studio Documentation. Support information is in Technical Support, under Getting Started with Visual Studio 6.0.
Note You must install MSDN to get the online documentation.
You can look up support information on the Web at http://support.microsoft.com. In addition, you can call (425) 635-7012.
This section lists installation issues identified for server-side components shipped with Visual Studio.
Consult the following table for information on operating system, browser, and other dependency requirements for installation and use of server-side components.
Table of Minimum Requirements for Installation of Server-Side Components
| Component | NT Server | NT Workstation | Windows 95/98 | Requires Microsoft Internet Explorer | Other Dependencies |
| Windows NT Option Pack 4.0 | NT Srvr. | NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 | Limited on Win95 | None | |
| SQL Server 6.5 (DEV Edition) | NT Srvr. | NT Workstation 3.51 + | Installs some tools on Windows 95 | No | None |
| SQL Server Debugging Service | NT Srvr. 3.51 Sp5 or better | --- | --- | No | Needs SQL server 6.5 (SP3) |
| Visual SourceSafe Server Components | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation 4 | Windows 95 | Yes. Version 4 for viewing HTML Help | None |
| Posting Acceptor (2.0) | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 | Windows 95 | --- | Install NTOP before PA 2.0 |
| Remote Machine Debugging (Script Debugging) | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation | Windows 95 | Yes. Version 4 or later | None |
| Visual InterDev Server Components | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 | Windows 95 | Yes. Version 4 or later | Install NTOP, MDAC, FP Extensions before VIDSS |
| FrontPage Server Extensions | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 | Windows 95 | Yes. Version 4 or later | Install NTOP, MDAC before FP Extension |
| Fox ISAPI Samples and Extensions | --- | NO OS dependencies (samples) | --- | Any generic browser | None |
| Visual Studio Analyzer | Yes | NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 | Windows 95 (with DCOM update) | Yes. Only on W95 to get DCOM | None |
| Application Performance Explorer | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 | Windows 95 (with DCOM update) | Yes. Only on W95 to get DCOM | None |
| MDAC 2.0 Update | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation 4.0 | Windows 95 | No | Install after NTOP and Before SNA |
| SNA server | NT4 Srvr. | NT Workstation 4.0 | --- | No | Install after MDAC and MTS |
When you install the Visual Studio 6.0 server-side components on a Windows NT server computer, using the Installation Wizard, you may encounter the message "Another copy of Setup is already running. Complete the other Setup or restart Windows."
This situation typically occurs on slow computers where the Wizard timer runs out while waiting for an ACME setup to finish, and the Wizard starts the next setup.
Click OK in the message box. This action will tell the Wizard to terminate one of the conflicting processes and continue with the remaining installations. The summary page that is automatically generated at the end of setup will list the components, if any, that were not completely installed.
To install the specific component that failed, run setup wizard again.
It is recommended that you install all server applications on computers running Windows NT.
Enterprise and Professional Editions of Visual Studio 6.0 products are packaged with a variety of Microsoft server applications specifically tailored for the Visual Studio developer. Most applications can be installed on either Windows 95 or Windows NT operating systems. We recommend installing all server applications on Windows NT, either Workstation or Server.
If you choose to set up servers on a Windows 95 computer, the order of installation is important. On Windows 95 some applications must be installed before others for the installation to complete successfully and the product to work. Install the components in the following order:
For other issues relating to Windows 95 computers, go to Issues Specific to Windows 95 Computers
If you install SQL Server 6.5 on a computer with Windows NT Option Pack 4.0 installed, some of your Design Time Controls (DTCs) may be overwritten.
If this happens, you will get an error message when you launch Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS). The message will instruct you to reinstall MTS.
To prevent this situation, install NT Option Pack after you install SQL Server.
Information in this section addresses issues on debugging and configuring computers for debugging services.
Internet Information Server (IIS) has a patch that fixes problems related to debugging Active Server Pages (ASP) from Visual InterDev. This patch also fixes a Windows 95/98 problem in which changes to the Global.asa would not be reflected in your application (such as adding, changing, or removing data connections) until you stopped and restarted your Web server.
To ensure that ASP debugging works properly, or to address the Windows 95/98 issue, apply the patch after the BackOffice Installation Wizard has finished.
To apply the IIS patch on Windows NT computers
| Product | Disc Location |
| Visual Studio, Professional Edition | CD#2 |
| Visual Studio, Enterprise Edition | CD#3 |
| Visual InterDev | CD#1 |
To apply the IIS patch on Windows 9x computers
| Product | Disc Location |
| Visual Studio, Professional Edition | CD#2 |
| Visual Studio, Enterprise Edition | CD#3 |
| Visual InterDev | CD#1 |
To use SQL Debugging services on a computer that has SQL Server 6.5 and Visual C++ 5.0 or higher installed, make sure that the Remote Automation (RA) configuration properties of the computer are set correctly.
To check RA configuration properties
Also, your SQL Debugging scenarios may not work if you run SQL Server as a service under the Local System account. You must select This Account and enter a valid account and password.
This section lists issues identified when Visual Studio 6.0 is installed on Windows 95 or Windows 98 computers.
A 64-KB limitation in the size of the SharedDLL key in the Windows 95 system registry may generate a warning that appears when you install Visual Studio 6.0.
Before continuing with setup, you should shorten the install path where you plan to install Visual Studio 6.0, reducing the amount of registry space required.
Additionally, you can uninstall programs you no longer use by utilizing the Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel. The registry keys used exclusively by those programs will then be deleted.
To save further on registry space used by programs you intend to keep, uninstall, then reinstall these programs to shorter installation paths.
Consider using the RegClean utility, designed to clean up unnecessary entries in your registry. The application is no longer available from Microsoft, but a version can be downloaded here http://download.com.com/3000-2094-881470.html?tag=list.
Note On Windows NT Workstations and Servers, Visual Studio setup will automatically resize the registry.
Visual Studio setup may fail on Windows 95 computers configured with Autologon.
Before you install Visual Studio 6.0 or any of its products on a Windows 95 computer with Autologon enabled, turn off Autologon by following the instructions found at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q141/8/58.asp.
Note This article contains several additional steps that may not be relevant on your system.
If you installed Visual Studio products on a Windows 95 computer configured with Autologon, and setup failed, repeat your setup steps with Autologon disabled.
If remote connections are enabled in Windows 95 or Windows 98, the system may try to initiate an Internet connection at Windows startup or at the start of many applications. This behavior is sometimes called "autodial" or "autoconnect." You can turn off this behavior by setting the registry key EnableRemoteConnect to "N."
To do this, create a text file "DisbleAutoConnect.reg" with exactly the following three lines:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OLE]
"EnableRemoteConnect"="N"
Changing this setting to disable remote connections should not prevent any of your normal Internet activities, and this setting is the default for most systems. However, enabling remote connections is necessary for some features of DCOM (see http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q177/3/94.asp).
If there are instances when you need to have remote connections enabled, create a second REG file, "EnableRemoteConnect.reg", with exactly the following 3 lines:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OLE]
"EnableRemoteConnect"="Y"
Run "EnableAutoConnect.reg" to make the setting, and then run "DisbleAutoConnect.reg" to disable it when autoconnect is no longer needed.
If you choose to install Personal Web Server (PWS) on a Windows 95 computer, the Installation Wizard may not resume correctly after the computer restarts. To proceed, start Setup.exe again from the first disc of your Visual Studio 6.0 CD set. The Installation Wizard automatically resumes setup at the correct point.
When the Installation Wizard launches other client or server setups, the Wizard becomes invisible and waits until the component installation is complete. The Wizard then reappears, enabling the user to install another component.
When you install Microsoft FrontPage 98 extensions on some Windows 95 computers, the Installation Wizard may remain hidden for several minutes after the FrontPage setup is complete.
While the Wizard is hidden, you cannot launch the setup program again. A second Installation Wizard will not start when the program detects that one is already running.
This section lists installation issues that may affect programs already installed on your computer.
The IISAM Exchange driver requires that Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook be fully installed on your computer prior to installation of Visual Studio. If neither is installed, the IISAM Exchange driver will not be self-registered.
To correct the problem after you've installed Visual Studio 6.0, you can install Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook and then manually self-register the IISAM Exchange driver using this command line:
Regsrv32 msexch35.dll
This section lists known setup issues related to computers with non-U.S. versions of Microsoft programs.
If you are installing this version of Visual Studio 6.0 on a non-U.S. version of Windows NT 4.0, you must first install the appropriate language version of Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3.
To install this version of Visual Studio 6.0 on a computer that uses an international version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, you must install the appropriate language version of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The international versions of Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 are available from these locations:
The international versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer are available from:
Before installing the English version of Visual Studio 6.0 on a system that is configured with a bidirectional (BiDi) character set, such as Hebrew or Arabic, you first must install the localized version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 1.
The international versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer are available from:
On NEC PC98's where the C drive is a floppy disk, if you get the error Cannot read drive \Device\Floppy0:, place a formatted floppy disk in the drive. Make sure that the drive door is closed and that the disk is properly formatted. Then, proceed with installation.
This section discusses all issues identified in Data Access SDK 2.0.
The Data Access SDK delivered with Visual Studio requires that the Microsoft Data Access components be installed prior to installing this SDK. Otherwise, when the SDK setup is run, you will get the message:
ODBC is not installed on this machine. If you continue, you will receive errors. Do you wish to continue anyway?
To resolve this, make sure that you have run the Visual Studio setup before installing the Data Access SDK.
The Microsoft Data Access SDK 2.0 can be installed by running the file DASDK.exe from the \dasdk directory on disc 2.
The SDK includes Microsoft Data Access Components samples, and further information and tools for ODBC and OLE DB developers.
You must update the catalog procedures if you plan to use SQL Server 6.5 or older with MDAC 2.0. See the SQL Server Driver Help file, drvssrvr.hlp, for more information.
Typically, you will find drvssrvr.hlp