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Visual Studio .NET Software Requirements

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Certain project types and features in Visual Studio require that specific software components, which may be listed as optional in setup, must be installed before you can use that feature or project. Some of these components must be installed on the development computer, while others can be installed on a remote computer.

Identifying software requirement issues

The following table lists the components that must be installed on the various operating systems to perform the tasks specified. These components are not installed with Visual Studio .NET Prerequisites.

Do you want to Windows 2000 Windows XP
Windows Server 2003 or later		 Windows NT41
Windows 98
Windows Me
Windows XP Home
Develop ASP Web applications and XML Web services Internet Information Services (IIS) IIS Not supported
Compile code related to Microsoft Windows Message Queuing (MSMQ) Message Queuing Services Message Queuing Services Not supported
Debug code on remote computers Visual Studio Remote Debugger Visual Studio Remote Debugger Visual Studio Remote Debugger
Use source code control to version stored procedures Visual Studio 6.0 Stored Procedure Versioning
Visual SourceSafe
Microsoft SQL Server		 Visual Studio 6.0 Stored Procedure Versioning
Visual SourceSafe
Microsoft SQL Server		 Not supported

1 Windows NT 4.0 supports only the installation of Visual Studio Remote Debugger and Visual Studio Analyzer Client. You cannot install Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual C#, or Visual J# on Windows NT 4.0. For information on the hardware requirements for other products that are included in some editions, read their associated readme files.

Common questions

  • Why can't I create ASP Web applications or XML Web services?
    You do not have Internet Information Services (IIS) installed on your Windows 2000 or Windows XP or later computer. ASP Web applications and XML Web services require that both IIS and FrontPage Server Extensions be installed for local development of these project types. ASP.NET must also be installed and registered. For more information, see Introduction to Web Projects and Troubleshooting Web Projects.
  • Why do I get an error when I compile code that includes a MessageQueue component?
    If you do not have Microsoft Windows Message Queuing installed on your computer, you might receive an error message indicating that a file, mqoa.dll, is missing when you try to compile code that uses the message queue. For more information, see Introduction to Messaging.
  • How do I enable debugging on other computers?
    You must install the Visual Studio Remote Debugging component on any computer that you want to debug from another computer.
  • Why do I get an error when I try to debug or run a Web application or XML Web service on NT 4.0?
    You are running Windows NT 4.0 on either your development computer or Web server computer. Windows NT 4 Web Servers and NT 4 Workstations do not support ASP.NET, which is required to create, debug, or run ASP.NET Web applications and XML Web services created using ASP.NET. For more information, see Error While Trying to Run Project: Unable to Start Debugging on the Web Server and Troubleshooting Web Projects.
  • What features are supported on Windows NT 4.0?
    Windows NT 4.0 supports remote debugging and Visual Studio Analyzer Client. All other features are only available on Windows 2000 and Windows XP or later.
  • How can I maintain multiple versions of my stored procedures using source code control?
    You must install Visual Studio 6.0 Stored Procedure Versioning and Visual SourceSafe on a computer that is running SQL Server.

Resolving software requirement issues

The following sections include instructions for installing the components listed previously in this topic.

Installing Internet Information Services

You must have IIS installed and FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) installed and configured in order to create local Web applications and XML Web services. If you did not install IIS when you installed this product, follow the steps listed in the table below. Once you have installed IIS, you must repair the .NET Framework installation.

FPSE is installed and configured with IIS if the FrontPage Server Extensions option is selected. If you have installed IIS on a FAT16 or FAT32 file system, you must manually configure FPSE.

To find out if your drive uses a FAT16 or FAT32 file system

  1. On the Start menu, and choose My Computer.
  2. Right-click the drive you intend to check and select Properties.
  3. On the General tab, the File system label indicates what file system the drive uses.

Once you have determined whether or not you have a FAT file system, use the table below to determine which procedures you need to complete.

If you Do the following
Have an NTFS file system Install IIS

Repair .NET Framework
Have a FAT16 or FAT32 file system Install IIS

Manually configure FPSE

Repair .NET Framework

Installing IIS

To install IIS on Windows 2000 or Windows XP

  1. For Windows 2000 users, on the Start menu, choose Settings and then choose Control Panel. For Windows XP and later, on the Start menu, choose Control Panel.
  2. In Control Panel, choose Add/Remove Programs and then choose Add/Remove Windows Components.
  3. In the Windows Components Wizard, select Internet Information Services (IIS) from the Components list.
  4. Click Next to begin installation.
  5. After installation is complete, return to Add/Remove Programs.
  6. Select the Visual Studio .NET product you have installed, such as Visual Studio .NET Enterprise or Visual Basic .NET, and then choose Change.
  7. Re-install the Visual Studio .NET product.

To install IIS on Windows Server 2003

  1. On the Start menu, choose Programs and then select Administrative Tools.
  2. Choose Configure Your Server Wizard.
  3. Click Next and then Next again.
  4. In the Server Role list, select Web application server (IIS, ASP.NET) and then choose Next.
  5. On the Web Application Server Options pane, select FrontPage Server Extensions and then click Next.
  6. Click Finish.

Manually Configuring FrontPage Server Extensions

If you are installing on a Windows FAT16 or FAT32 file system, you must manually configure FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions after installing IIS.

To manually configure FrontPage Server Extension on Windows 2000

  1. On the Start menu, choose Settings, and then Control Panel.

  2. Select Administrative Tools, and then select Computer Management.

  3. In the Computer Management dialog box, expand the Services and Applications node, and then expand the Internet Information Services node.

  4. Right-click Default Web Site, choose All Tasks, and then choose Configure Server Extensions.

    Note   If the Configure Server Extensions menu command is missing, FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions are already installed.

  5. Choose Next on the first page of the Server Extensions Configuration Wizard.

  6. Choose Yes in the Warning dialog box.

  7. Choose No for configuring the mail server settings, then choose Next.

  8. Choose Finish.

To manually configure FrontPage Server Extension on Windows XP

  1. On the Start menu, choose Control Panel, and then select the Performance and Maintenance category.

  2. Select Administrative Tools, and then select Computer Management.

  3. In the Computer Management dialog box, expand the Services and Applications node, and then expand the Internet Information Services node.

  4. Expand the Web sites node.

  5. Right-click Default Web Site, choose All Tasks, and then choose Configure Server Extensions.

    Note   If the Configure Server Extensions menu command is missing, FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions are already installed.

  6. Choose Next on the first page of the Server Extensions Configuration Wizard.

  7. Choose Yes in the Warning dialog box.

  8. Choose No for configuring the mail server settings, then choose Next.

  9. Choose Finish.

To manually configure FrontPage Server Extension on Windows Server 2003

  1. On the Start menu, choose Control Panel and then select Administrative Tools.

  2. Select Computer Management.

  3. In the Computer Management dialog box, expand the Services and Applications node, and then expand the Internet Information Services (IIS) node.

  4. Select Web Service Extensions.

  5. In the list on the right, select FrontPage Server Extensions <version number> and then click Allow.

  6. In the Computer Management dialog box, expand the Web sites node.

  7. Right-click Default Web Site, choose All Tasks, and then choose Configure Server Extensions <version number>.

    Note   If the Configure Server Extensions menu command does not appear, FrontPage Server Extensions are already installed and configured.

  8. Click Submit on the Extend virtual server with FrontPage Server Extensions 2002 page.

Repairing .NET Framework

If you installed IIS after installing Visual Studio .NET Prerequisites or Visual Studio .NET, you must repair .NET Framework before you can successfully create Web applications and XML Web services.

Note   If you installed on Windows Server 2003 or later, you do not need to repair the .NET Framework.

To repair .NET Framework for Windows 2000 or Windows XP

  • For Visual Studio .NET DVD, insert the DVD, and then on the Start menu choose Run:

    <DVD Drive>:\wcu\dotNetFramework\dotnetfx.exe /t:c:\temp /c:"msiexec.exe /fvecms c:\temp\netfx.msi"

  • For Visual Studio .NET CDs, insert the Visual Studio .NET Prerequisites CD, and then on the Start menu choose Run:

    <CD Drive>:\dotNetFramework\dotnetfx.exe /t:c:\temp /c:"msiexec.exe /fvecms c:\temp\netfx.msi"

Installing Message Queuing Services

If you do not have Microsoft Message Queue installed on your computer, you might receive an error message indicating that a file, mqoa.dll, is missing when you try to compile code that uses the message queue.

To install Message Queuing Services on Windows 2000 and Windows XP

  1. For Windows 2000 users, on the Start menu, choose Settings and then choose Control Panel. For Windows XP and later, on the Start menu, choose Control Panel.
  2. In Control Panel, choose Add/Remove Programs and then choose Add/Remove Windows Components.
  3. In the Windows Component Wizard, choose Message Queuing Services from the Components list.
  4. Click Next, and then follow the remaining steps.

Installing Visual Studio Remote Debugger

The Visual Studio Remote Debugger allows you to set up one or more computers as debugging platforms while another computer is your test platform. Visual Studio Remote Debugger can be installed on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98, and later versions of Windows. This component includes the files necessary for SQL, TSQL, Native, Managed, and Script Debugging. For more information, see Setting Up Remote Debugging.

Installing Visual Studio 6.0 Stored Procedure Versioning

Visual Studio 6.0 Stored Procedure Versioning is allows you to include stored procedures in Visual SourceSafe and take advantage of source code control features. Visual Studio 6.0 Stored Procedure Versioning and Visual SourceSafe must be installed on a computer that is running SQL Server. For more information, see Versioning Stored Procedures with Visual Studio 6.0 and SQL Server 7.0.

To install Visual Studio 6.0 Stored Procedure Versioning

  1. Insert Visual Studio .NET CD or DVD.

  2. On the Start menu, choose Run.

  3. In the Open box, type the following:

    msiexec /qb+ /i n:\<Visual Studio .NET CD or DVD>\vs_setup.msi NOVSUI=1 SERVER_SETUP=1 ADDLOCAL=Visual_Database_Tools_Sproc_Version

    For example:

    msiexec /qb+ /i d:\vs_setup.msi NOVSUI=1 SERVER_SETUP=1 ADDLOCAL=Visual_Database_Tools_Sproc_Version

Installing the SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE)

During setup, you can choose to copy the installation files for MSDE to your computer; this gives you the option of manually installing MSDE at a later time.

Installing MSDE involves three steps:

  • Setting a custom MSDE instance name. This step is optional.
  • Running setup for MSDE.
  • Starting the MSDE service.

You can skip the following procedure if you intend to use the default instance name, "VsdotNet2003".

To create a custom MSDE instance name

  1. On the Start menu, choose Run.
  2. In the Open box, type c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Setup\MSDE\ and then click OK.
  3. Double-click the file setup.ini to edit the file in Notepad.
  4. Replace VSdotNET2003 inINSTANCENAME=VSdotNETwith the instance name of your choice.
  5. On the File menu, choose Save and then choose Exit.

You can install MSDE simply by running the appropriate setup file from the location where Setup copied the file.

To install MSDE

  1. On the Start menu, choose Run.
  2. In the Open box, type c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Setup\MSDE\ and click OK.
  3. Double-click the file setup.exe.

After you have installed MSDE, you must then start the MSDE service.

To start the MSDE service

  1. On the Start menu, choose Run.

  2. In the Open box, type NET START MSSQL$<instance name> and click OK.

    For example, if you chose to use the default instance name, you would enter NET START MSSQL$VSdotNET2003.

Installing and Configuring Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)

IPv6 is a new version of the Internet Protocol, designed as a successor to IP version 4 (IPv4). IPv6 increases the IP address size from 32 bits to 128 bits to support more levels of addressing hierarchy, provide a greater number of addressable nodes, and to simplify auto-configuration of addresses. For additional information about IPv6, see Microsoft Windows-IPv6.

IPv6 is available in Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP (SP1), but it is not installed by default. IPv6 is supported by .NET Framework 1.1 and Visual Studio .NET 2003. However, you must manually configure your Visual Studio .NET applications to take advantage of IPv6.

To install IPv6 in Windows

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.

  2. At the Command Prompt, type: ipv6 install.

    Note   The IPv6 protocol is installed as a networking protocol but does not appear in the list of components in the properties of a LAN connection in Network Connections.

  3. After installing it on your development computer, you can configure a Visual Studio .NET Web application to use IPv6 by adding the following to the application configuration file, Web.config:

<configuration>
   <system.net>
   <settings>
   <ipv6 enabled="true" />
   </settings>
   </system.net>
</configuration>

Although not recommended by Microsoft, you can also specify that all applications on the computer use IPv6 by adding the following line to the machine.config file in the .NET Framework 1.1 directory.

<configuration>
   <system.net>
   <settings>
   <ipv6 enabled="true" />
   </settings>
   </system.net>
</configuration>

Note   This change affects the behavior of every .NET application that is installed on this machine.

See Also

Visual Studio .NET Hardware Requirements | Installation and Setup | Troubleshooting Web Projects