Microsoft KB Archive/234852

= PRB: Visual Studio Setup Not Reading from CD-ROM =

Article ID: 234852

Article Last Modified on 8/15/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Professional Edition

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This article was previously published under Q234852



SYMPTOMS
Visual Studio does not read from the CD-ROM during setup.



RESOLUTION
If Visual Studio is having difficulties reading the CD during setup, you can copy the CD to the hard disk and run setup from there. The following steps describe how to copy the Visual Studio CD to the hard disk and verify that the data maintained its integrity during the copy.  Create a new folder on the hard disk and name it VSCD1. Copy the contents of the Visual Studio CD to this new folder.  Locate and run Windiff, which is on the CD in the \Common\Tools folder. From Windiff, compare the following directories: For Dir1 enter: " :\" For Dir2 enter: " :\vscd1"  Make sure that Include subdirectories is selected and click OK.

Depending on the speed of your machine, the compare could take a long time. If the directories compare without differences, you should attempt to run setup from the directory you created on the hard disk (for example, c:\vscd1).



MORE INFORMATION
Setup may look for and find a Visual SourceSafe database on the copy of the CD-ROM. Do not let setup install Visual SourceSafe to this location because it will overwrite parts of the CD-ROM image you created.

If the directories compare with differences, there is an issue that either causes inconsistent reading of CDs or the hard disk. It is unlikely to be a problem with the CD itself, but it may be that the CD was poorly written, causing the CD-ROM drive to have difficulty reading the same data consistently. To confirm that the problem isn't with the CD, choose another CD with several hundred megabytes of data on it, and copy it with Windiff. If it also fails, then almost certainly the CD-ROM drive hardware on your system is unreliable. It could be the hard-drive or the CD-ROM drivers on your system, but this is less likely. This problem will need to be resolved before you can run setup from either the CD-ROM or the hard disk.

Once setup has completed successfully, run the Developer Tools to confirm the installation worked. Then you can remove the C:\Vscd1 folder from your hard disk.

Copying files from CDs typically is more reliable when it is done in one operation (such as copying the entire CD to a hard-drive) than it is when copying individual files the way setup does. However, always use Windiff to compare the contents of the image with the original CD. If there are Windiff errors, then the CD-ROM drive is too unreliable to use even when doing a complete copy.

Keywords: kbprb KB234852

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