Stuck with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 errors

2

A ways back I installed Microsoft Visual Studio beta 2. Today I installed Visual Studio 2010 from Dreamspark (the one with the activation key baked in). This resulted in an install with no place to put an activation key (I don't have one anyways), but I still get the following error when I try to start it:

Your Microsoft Visual Studio evaluation period has expired.
You will need to upgrade Microsoft Visual Studio to the latest release.

This didn't go away with a complete uninstall and reinstall, and I have no idea how to fix it. A quick internet search reveals that this is the error message from Beta 2 after the date at which the RTM version went live. I have a feeling that the message is due to some hanging registry entries (I went through the manual uninstall instructions here). Does anyone know how to find and eliminate all vestiges of Beta 2 or something?

Clueless

Posted 2010-12-21T07:15:09.883

Reputation: 339

Question was closed 2011-06-09T12:20:44.120

Answers

0

The expiration of the Visual Studio 2010 betas was backed into the executables. It is now some configuration setting from the installer.

Upgrade to an RTM install to get an install without an expiry.1

NB VS installs from MSDN also come with a baked in installation key (if I recall correctly it is actually contained in one of the setup configuration files).

1 On some licensing programs your licence might expire.

Richard

Posted 2010-12-21T07:15:09.883

Reputation: 8 152

I have uninstalled the existing VS2010 with an expiration date, and reinstalled from a MSDN RTM install. I have done this twice now. Apparently the expiration date is baked into some place inaccessible to the RTM uninstaller. I am looking for a way to remove that now so I can use my valid RTM copy. I am currently forced to RDP into a remote computer running the RTM VS2010 as a workaround. I don't know if this computer will ever be able to run VS2010, which would be a shame. – Clueless – 2010-12-22T21:43:40.450

@Clueless: ensure you have uninstalled all the VS 2010 and .NET 4 pre-RTM components -- ISTR more than one uninstall being needed (my system had B2, uninstalled once RTM available, and runs RTM fine, but I did that before B2 expired). – Richard – 2010-12-23T19:06:49.570

Asked: 2010-12-21T07:15:09.883

Viewed: 323 times

Active: 2011-06-08T21:08:07.107