HOWTO: Silently Install Visual Studio 6.0

ID: Q195828

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0

SUMMARY

This article describes how to silently install Visual Studio 6.0.

This is a totally silent installation without any user interaction or display.

There will be no indication of a successful installation.

There might be no indication of errors during the installation. The installation might fail without any indication.

Since this is a silent install, it will not force you to restart Windows, even when it is absolutely needed. After the install you must restart.

MORE INFORMATION

Pre-install Required Operating System Components

You need to already have the following programs installed on your target computer:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 service pack 1
```
     X:\IE4\Ie4setup.exe 
```

Post IE 4.0sp1 Microsoft Java VM (if X:\IE4\Ie4setup.exe is not run to install IE 4.0sp1)
```
     X:\IE4\Msjavx86.exe 
```

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 service pack 3 (for NT targets only)
```
     X:\NTSP3\Nt4sp3_i.exe 
```

Please see the REFERENCES section of this article for information on how to silently install these components. Failure to install these components first might result in installation errors or Visual Studio 6.0 components might fail to operate correctly after installation. In the following, we use X: to represent the drive letter of Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Disk 1.

Configure Visual Studio for Unattended Install

Since a silent installation proceeds without any user involvement, the setup choices need to be made prior to installation. You do this by modifying the .stf file. Use the ACOST tool provided in the setup directory on CD 1 to do this.

Copy the Visual Studio 6.0 Disk 1 to a server hard drive (assume C:\VS6CD1).

Remove the read-only attribute from C:\VS6CD1\Setup\Vs98ent.stf.

Run C:\VS6CD1\Setup\ACost.exe.

From the File menu, click Open STF. Select C:\VS6CD1\Setup\Vs98ent.stf.

Select the Visual Studio 6.0 components you want to install. Deselect the components you do not want to install. If you deselect a root, you prevent the installation of every component nested under it (that is, you do not need to individually deselect all of the branches).

From the File menu, click Save As. Select C:\VS6CD1\Setup\Vs98ent.stf. Note that ACOST does not display any warning if you try to Save As to a file that is read-only. It just silently fails.

Use the following modified network CD image of the Visual Studio 6.0 disks as the installation source:

Share out the directory containing the disk images.

On the client computer, connect to that share and run the following command:

<path to the share>\VS6CD1\SMSINST.EXE /k <your CD-Key>

Unattended Install on the Target Computer

The following installs Visual Studio 6.0 using the default product options.

Smsinst.exe takes the CD-Key (see your Visual Studio 6.0 CD packaging) as an argument. For example, if your CD-Key were 460-1234567, then the following is the proper command line to launch Smsinst.exe:

Smsinst.exe /k 4601234567

Note that Smsinst.exe might report an access error. This might be a timing issue. If you get this error, retry the exact same command you just executed to start Smsinst.exe.

You must restart the target computer after the Visual Studio client install is finished and before proceeding to install any additional clients, MSDN, or server components included with Visual Studio. Pending run-once operations do not sequence, and so you can't just hold off and do one reboot at the end.

Under Windows 98, you might receive an error that Acmsetup.exe is already in use. If you receive this error, run the unattended install again. It should succeed the second time.

Files Not Installed

A silent install does not install the server components or any of the other client tools. It is not possible to include server components or client tools in this operation. You need to install these components separately.

The Help and documentation (which is provided by MSDN) is also not installed in this step, and you need to install it separately.

Install MSDN

Make a directory on a server and share it out.

Copy the MSDN Library, Visual Studio 6.0 Edition, Disks 1 and 2 into this directory. Do not make subdirectories for each disk. You must copy them into the same directory.

Verify that both MSDN331.inf and MSDN332.inf exist in the root of this directory.

Verify that the .chm files from both Disk 1 and Disk 2 are in the MSDN subdirectory.

Remove the read-only attribute from the following file:


      <path to the share>\X86\SETUP\Msdn98.stf

Use the ACost.exe mentioned above to select the components you want to install. If you do not select any components, only the indices for the books are installed and you must have access to the installation point to use the MSDN Library Viewer.

Run <path to the share>\setup.exe /k <your CD-Key> /n "<your name>" /o "<your organization name>" /qtn

Install Server Components and Client Tools

You need to install each of these separately. The documentation for doing this is beyond the scope of this article.

For a list of components, go to the X:\Install.htm (where X: designates the drive letter of Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Disk 1) and read "Minimum Requirements for Installation and Operation of Server-Side Components" the section.

The components are on Visual Studio 6.0 Disk 2 and Disk 3 (Enterprise Edition only).

REFERENCES

Please see the following article for information about performing a silent install for Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and the Post Internet Explorer 4.0 Java Virtual Machine:

Q165907 Unattended Internet Explorer 3.02 Setup Performs Standard Setup

Please see the following article for information about performing a silent install for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3:

Q168814 Installing WinNT 4.0 Service Packs During Unattended Install

Additional query words:


Keywords          : kbsetup kbVS600 
Version           : WINDOWS:6.0
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: April 13, 1999