The SP1 for Visual Studio 2005 with over 2200 bug fixes (yay) is here, however, don't just go installing without checking out the release notes file first. It includes warnings like: the install takes a loooooooooong time, requires a lot of hard drive space and has a lot of “features” that might be a little confusing. Here are some of the points from the Release Notes, but definitely read through the entire thing in advance of installing or like many others who just got so excited and clicked the install button only to get very frustrated, you might find yourself dragging your sorry butt to the local watering hole to ease the pain.
Quoting from the Release notes:
Service pack installation takes longer than the original product installation:
Installing Visual Studio 2005 SP1 takes longer than installing the original release version because the SP1 installation is much like a product installation, but with additional installation tasks. Installation time depends on which product is installed and the computer’s configuration.
Installation requires significant disk space:
Disk space equal to that taken by the original product installation may be needed to install a service pack. If you have more than one Visual Studio product installed, you will need disk space for each service pack installation. You can find an estimate of the required disk space on the download page for the service pack.
Visual Studio 2005 SP1 tries to install multiple times:
The service pack will run multiple times if you have multiple Visual Studio products installed on your computer. Do not start the installation more than once.
Dialog boxes are partially hidden during installation:
This problem occurs if you move the Configuring … dialog box away from the center of the screen. Subsequent dialog boxes are centered on the Configuring … dialog box. If the Configuring … dialog box is near the corner of the screen, larger dialog boxes that display later may be partially off the screen.
Visual Studio 2005 SP1 will not install immediately after a Visual Studio compilation:
You cannot install Visual Studio 2005 SP1 until the debugger service closes.
To resolve this issue, do one of the following:
• Finish compilations that are in progress and wait for the debugger service to close. This could take up to ten minutes.
• Use the Task Manager to end all instances of the mspdbsrv.exe service.
Team Foundation Server prerequisites:
You must install the update from KB article 919156 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919156) before you install Visual Studio 2005 SP1. This update makes sure that the server does not process client requests during the installation of SP1.
Uninstallation of Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects required:
Follow these steps to install Visual Studio 2005 SP1 if you have Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects installed:
1. Uninstall the Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336618.aspx) add-in.
2. Install Visual Studio 2005 SP1.