Problem re-installing Visual Studio .NET 2003 Beta

[Jimmy Dodd]

I recently uninstalled both Visual Studio .NET and Visual Studio .NET 2003 Final Beta in order to clean up my system a bit. I tried to reinstall 2003 Final Beta (From MSDN Univ Sub disc 1952.1) and it seems to work with the exception of the Compact Framework. I don't recall having to install anything special for the CF previously, but it doesn't work with the regular install. The symptom I see is that in trying to build a Smart Device App I get warnings about all of the assemblies I am "using" in my app (things like "system, System.Windows, etc.). The desktop apps build fine.

Is there a seperate install that I can't find in my disks that I'm missing?

[Tim Allen]

I don't have the answer for you, I'm afraid, but there's an MSDN online chat about the CF tomorrow, they may be able to help. Take a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/ for the details.

[Jimmy Dodd]

Digging around in the registry I found that after uninstalling both apps (vs .net 2002 and 2003) there was a lot of stuff left behind. Several referenced the now deleted CF directories that were originally created with the install of VS.NET 2002 and the SDE. After reinstalling VS.NET 2003 the CF directories were correctly installed in the 2003 subfolders, but the registry references to the deleted folders remained. Apparently, VS .NET 2003 was seeing those references (first?) and looking in the deleted folders for the CF. I simply copied the CF folders over to the old location and voila! Everything started working. I'm tempted to hack the Registry and clear out the old entries but I doubt I'd find them all. Instead, I'll try to reinstall and uninstall 2002 this weekend and see if that clears it all up.