"microsoft visual studio preparation" extremely slow

Question

While updating or uninstalling Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension Preview the step "Microsoft Visual Studio Preparation" is taking enormous amount of time. I may say it gets stuck.

My suspicion is the installer (Windows one, not the extension itself, since it is getting modified--updated or uninstalled) is making changes to the registry.

VS registry entries are too many to investigate them one by one. Re-installing VS is not an option. (I have VS 2013 Ultimate on Windows 8.1.)

So, my question is: is there any tool to repair, optimize, clean, or otherwise modify registry (VS portions only) to get the process quicker? Or some sensitive keys that need to be explored? Seems like there are timeouts involved? (Although I do not find this quite reasonable...)

Or, if I am wrong about the registry, Is there another reason for this symptomatic behaviour? UAC issues? NTFS security? Other?

Any advice?

Thanks.

Lamonicalamont

Answer 1

I just solved a similar issue with installing Visual Studio 2013 Update 3. It was taking over an hour on the "Microsoft Visual Studio Preparation" step.

I fired up Process Monitor from Sysinternals and realised the installer was busy logging to C:\FusionLog. Killed the update process, changed the relevant settings under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion to turn off assembly bind logging, rebooted to make sure the new settings were recognised, and voila, the "Microsoft Visual Studio Preparation" step took on the order of 10's of seconds.

I hope this helps with your problem because this was extremely frustrating for me. I wasted most of my work day on this.

Halloo

Thanks, Paul. I took MSVS Preparation delay for granted, but your answer definitely deserves attention. – Lamonicalamont

Thank you Paul! I'm sorry you lost most of your work day, but you just saved most of mine. I'm very grateful. One thing I'd like to know, is how you saw in procmon that it was Fusion logging? – Poirier

Confirmed! I checked it during VS2013 Update 3 installation. And the key is: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fusion\PublisherPolicy\EnableLog. The preparation step was very short, less than a minute. – Lamonicalamont

@achristov Hi: why don't I have this key under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fusion\PublisherPolicy\EnableLog? Need I manually add this key? Thanks! – Dyslogistic

@Marson Mao: I suspect you have a different VS version installed Or, maybe, if the key is not present no logging takes place? (This is just a guess, you'd better consult the .NET documentation.) – Lamonicalamont

@achristov I was intalling 2013 yesterday. I don't know how to check the logging behavior with process monitor. :( But I managed to go through this issue...I just waited, lol. – Dyslogistic

Answer 2

When "Microsoft Visual Studio Preparation" is shown, the installer is running "devenv /setup" to register any packages and templates. That can take a long time. Though it's not ideal, it's not a bug; it's how Visual Studio works.

Bissell

Answer 3

See this blog posting: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/heaths/archive/2014/01/21/upgrading-visual-studio-2013-update-to-a-newer-update-may-be-slow.aspx

It basically says there's no workaround to save time, just sit tight:

"There is no current workaround that will save time. You might consider starting the upgrade before taking a lunch or heading out for the day."

It also says the issue has been resolved for future versions of VSUpdate and Visual Studio.

Atkins

Answer 4

Try to block the antivir activity. As for me, it significantly raised the speed.

Amsterdam