Microsoft KB Archive/873312

Knowledge Base

The Windows Installer dialog box may appear every time that you start Visual Studio .NET

Article ID: 873312

Article Last Modified on 1/19/2006

---

APPLIES TO

• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Developer
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional Edition
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Academic Edition
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Enterprise Architect
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Enterprise Developer
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Professional Edition
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 Academic Edition

---

SYMPTOMS

When you start Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 or Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, the Windows Installer dialog box may appear with the following message:

Preparing to install...

After this, you receive the following message:

Please wait while Windows configures Visual Studio .NET Edition

Note Edition is a placeholder for the edition of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, such as Enterprise Architect - English.

The dialog box disappears after few seconds, and then Visual Studio .NET starts.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because of the Mso.dll file. The Mso.dll file is a Microsoft Office XP file. Because the Mso.dll file is not updated correctly when Visual Studio .NET is installed, the Windows Installer dialog box appears every time Visual Studio .NET starts.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, you must delete the Mso.dll file, and then repair the Visual Studio .NET installation. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Delete the Mso.dll file from the following location:

   Drive character:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Office10

   Note Drive character is a placeholder for the disk drive where your Visual Studio .NET is installed.
2. Insert the first CD that contains Visual Studio .NET in the CD drive, and then start the Visual Studio .NET installation.
3. Windows Installer starts repairing the installation. Insert the remaining CDs to complete the installation.
4. After you finish the installation, start Visual Studio .NET. Note that you do not receive a message when you start Visual Studio .NET.

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

319714 How to troubleshoot Visual Studio .NET installation

312779 Visual Studio .NET Readme (Part 1)

316250 Visual Studio .NET Readme (Part 2)

Keywords: kbtshoot kbprb kbvs2005swept kbvs2005doesnotapply KB873312

---

Send feedback to Microsoft

© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.