Can't install last few versions with VS 2022

[KernelLeak]

I tried installing the latest version (4.5.0) for Visual Studio 2022, but the dialog at the end of the installation always looks like this:

---------------------------
Complete
---------------------------
Installed visualizers for:
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

which obviously hints at the installer not recognizing my installation of VS 2022.

I've downloaded all versions from 4.4.0 back to 4.0.0, but the only version that installs correctly is 4.0.0:

---------------------------
Complete
---------------------------
Installed visualizers for:

 - Visual Studio 2022
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

All later versions can't seem to find my installation of VS 2022 at c:\devel\vs2022 - could this be the issue? But why would a custom installation path work in 4.0.0, but fail in all versions that came after it?

[SteveWilkes]

Hi,

Thanks for raising this, and for the effort of going back to previous versions and finding out when it stopped working!

I think the only way you can wind up with an empty 'Installed visualizers for:' list is if the installer finds 1 or more VS installations, but then fails to install any of them. The only way a visualizer installation can silently fail is if the expected visualizers directory doesn't exist, and it figures that out based on the VS install directory.

It gets VS install directories from the registry, looking in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio*\Capabilities > ApplicationDescription, then substrings that value to get the path to the 'IDE' directory.

So! It would be helpful if you could look in your registry and let me know what you have in the ApplicationDescription key for your VS2022 installation - it'll be inside a VisualStudio_[RandomString]\Capabilities key. Thanks!

[KernelLeak]

Sorry for taking my time to reply, but this problem concerns my developer machine at work which I didn't have access to over the weekend...

The value of ApplicationDescription I have under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio_94ec1717\Capabilities is @C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\IDE\devenvdesc.dll,-1002 - does that help?

[SteveWilkes]

Thanks very much! That'll be useful, yeah - I'll look into it and see if I can see what's going on (or isn't going on, in this case)

[SteveWilkes]

Ok, the installer is expecting there to be a directory at C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers - does that exist?

[KernelLeak]

Ok, the installer is expecting there to be a directory at C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers - does that exist?

Yes, it does - and with 4.0.0 there's even a AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Vs17.dll in there...

Checking the logs created by "msiexec /l*" I can see only one significant difference:

4.0.0:

Calling custom action ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Installer.Custom!AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Installer.Custom.VisualizerInstallationActions.Install
Starting...
Installing visualizer AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Installer.Custom.AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Vs17.dll...
Writing visualizer to C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers\AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Vs17.dll
Writing object source to C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers\net2.0\AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Vs17.ObjectSource.dll
Writing object source to C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers\netstandard2.0\AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Vs17.ObjectSource.dll
Writing manifest to C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\IDE\Extensions\AgileObjects\ReadableExpressions.Visualizers\4.0.0
Updating VS extension records using C:\Devel\VS2022\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
Complete

4.5.0:

Calling custom action ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Installer.Custom!AgileObjects.ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Installer.Custom.VisualizerInstallationActions.Install
Starting...
Complete

:/

[KernelLeak]

I guess I found it - looking at the source code for the custom action, the only thing that changed was the way the VS version is determined in ReadableExpressions.Visualizers.Installer.Custom/VsPost2015Data.cs:

4.0.0 parsed the the ApplicationName from the registry, whereas all following versions parse the directories in the installation path as integers, so of course my "VS2022" isn't recognized...

Considering the installation path is user-configurable, whereas the ApplicationName probably isn't - I guess the old way was more robust... or are there any versions of Visual Studio where ApplicationName isn't set or doesn't contain the version number?

[SteveWilkes]

That's it! Thanks! I think ApplicationName turned out not be reliable in some scenarios so I switched to the install path - I've updated it to fall back to ApplicationName if it can't find a version in the path.

Release to follow! Thanks again!

[KernelLeak]

That seems like it'd be best of both worlds - thanks! :)

[SteveWilkes]

This is (finally) fixed in the v4.6 installer, which is now on VS Marketplace. Thanks!