Hello, Apologies for not having stayed on top of this, but other priorities have intervened.
I encountered persistent problems with my VS-15 install, all appearing as a message something like “This installation could not be completed because existing versions of the C++ redistributables were found. Restart to continue” (not clear whether restart the installer or the machine). I even retried from go following a complete cleanout of the SSD, uninstalling all existing applications on the machine and leaving essentially only the OS. Prior to starting the reinstall, I checked and there were still a few C++ redistributables installed for some reason, and I got the same unable-to-complete message at the completion of the install.
More than once, I tried the repair option, it made no difference. However, I’ve recently found that despite the lack of completion, the application does appear to be there, I can create and build a simple MFC application, so maybe the redistribution message is not something to worry about.
I’m an amateur with limited knowledge depth in Windows, and the option of going in deep with this forum to hunt down the cause doesn’t appeal. I’d only make the point that if in fact this redistributable thing is benign, then the installer might want to point this out. Also, is the way that redistributables are managed something that could be improved?
There may be log files and the like still around on the system from the latest installation, if someone can point me to them I’m happy to post here. However, surely this problem is well known already – although interestingly it doesn’t seem to feature in forums and other websites on VS install problems.
Regarding the suggestion to uninstall the redistributables, I am reticent to do this given that other applications most likely rely on them. For someone like me it could easily make my situation much worse.
Given that I appear to have a workable instance on my machine despite it all, this topic could be considered closed.
Thanks for various comments.