HOWTO: Setting Up Visual Studio onto Multiple Smaller Drives

With Visual Studio 97 you get a vast and comprehensive visual tool set to develop internet solutions and windows applications. In addition to providing the tools needed for application development, Visual Studio also provides a shared environment (IDE) for developing and debugging source code written in Visual C++, Visual J++ or Visual InterDev. Visual Studio also provides database support through Microsoft Visual FoxPro, and also for Microsoft Access through Visual Basic and Visual C++. The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Library provides tool-specific documentation, as well as comprehensive information. The Enterprise version also includes Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, a common source-code tool that supports projects written in any Visual Studio language, and also Microsoft SQL Server.

Visual Studio requires a lot of disk space. An installation of all products in Visual Studio is going to use more than 1 GBytes of hard disk space. The simplest installation method is to install all components into the same (large) hard drive. However, if you only have smaller drives, or have several drives, each of which only has a few hundred megabyte free, then you have to install some of the components onto separate drives.

There are two complementary problems with installing the components of Visual Studio onto several drives:

• Visual Studio 97 master setup is not integrated, so you cannot see how much space will be required of each product until you go to the setup of that product.
  
  
• Some components in several of the products must be installed into the same place (the "Shared Components" mentioned in the master setup welcome screen).

Several products (Visual C++, Visual J++, Visual InterDev, Visual Basic's Data Tools) use the MSDEV IDE components. These components all must be installed to the same place. Also, the IDE-based books online and the MSDN index files are installed here.

When you do a custom install of Visual C++, Visual J++, or Visual InterDev, you are given a choice of where to install these shared components. Once you install any product that installs some of the shared components, any subsequent products you install will use the same directory when installing additional shared components. Plan on using about 300 MBytes disk space for the shared components. Expect to use more if you are going to install all of the online books to the hard drive instead of using the CDROM. Expect to use less if you are not loading any books onto the hard drive, or not installing all of the products.

For these reasons, the following is a suggested method of installation:

1. (ONLY USE THIS STEP FOR VERY UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE SPACE IS EXTREMELY TIGHT)
   
   Start Visual Studio master setup and:
   1. Start the setup for each product you are interested in.
   2. Go to custom install for that product, select the components you want, and check the size requirements for the non-shared components.
   3. Exit the product setup without setting up, and return to Visual Studio master setup.
   4. This should help you plan where the various products can fit.
2. Decide on which drive to install all the shared components, and then decide on which drives to install the remaining non-shared components of each individual product. The back of the Visual Studio 97 box gives an idea of how much space the various products require, but this will depend on your choices and does not show how much is shared and how much is from non-shared components.
3. Start Visual Studio master setup and select one of the products you want to install, but start with one that includes shared components. For example, Visual C++, Visual J++, etc.
4. In this product's custom install, select the drive you want to use for the shared components.
5. In the custom install for this product and each of the remaining products you want, select the drive to use for the non-shared components.

There are two additional considerations for installation:

1. If you are going to install SQL Server, do that first. There is a known issue in the SQL Server that can cause it to overwrite newer components with older components.
   
   If you are going to install the MSDN Library, install it last because this will often reduce the number of times you have to swap disks when searching or referencing the online documentation. If you always keep the the MSDN Library CDROM in the drive, you do not have to disk swap for online content.
2. If you are going to install the MSDN Library, install it last because this will often reduce the number of times you have to swap disks when searching or referencing the online documentation. If you always keep the the MSDN Library CDROM in the drive, you do not have to disk swap for online content.