Which came first, the product or the patch?

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I'm setting up a Version Control Proxy for this week's manual testing efforts (flavor of the week: OS and product language settings are Japanese, topped off with setting the calendar to The Japanese Emperor Era).

I'm running into a new variation of the chicken-and-egg problem that both confused and amused me. I already knew to install IIS/ASP.Net, but then I ran into some additional wrinkles:

  1. To install the Proxy, an ASP.NET QFE must be installed (which is on the media)
  2. Of course, to install the QFE, the 2.0 Framework must already be installed...
  3. But the product is going to install 2.0 for me? GoTo Step1

Of course, the 2.0 .Net runtime is on the media as well, so it's just a question of running that (it's under "wcu" for Windows Component Update) by hand first, THEN applying the QFE, THEN installing the proxy.

The fact that the installer knows how to install the framework for you is sort of spoiled by the fact that it will never get a chance to do so.

It's one of those situations where a perfectly logical chain of events led to trouble. It made sense to have the installer put the framework on for you at the time the installer was initially created. But, entropy happens, and this is the result.

I suppose we'll slipstream the QFE into the runtime (or perhaps into the proxy install routine) at some point, but in the meantime, you'll have to do a few (more) steps by hand before you can install the VC proxy.