Visual Studio setup problem - 'A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.'

A colleague found this MS auto-uninstall tool which has successfully uninstalled VS2008 for me and saved me hours of work!!

Hopefully this might be useful to others. Doesn't speak highly of MS's faith in their usual VS maintenance tools that they have to provide this as well!

I had the same error message. For me it was happening because I was trying to run the installer from the DVD rather than running the installer from Add/Remove programs.

In my case, uninstalling from Add&Remove Programs didn't work. Instead, the problem was due to a recently hotfix installed through automatic updates. The hotfix to VS 2008 (in my case) has the number KB952241, so I uninstalled it using Add/Remove Programs checking on the show updates option. After it was unistalled the problem was gone.

I encountered the same problem and found a very easy solution.Go to the following Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/bb968856.aspx

and run VS AutoUninstall tool .This will automatically remove all the components of VS 2008.

Cheers

Uninstall hotfixes installed in related to vs2008 and then try again. It worked for me and hopefully it will for you as well.

Thanks, Zelalem

You should look for the MSI setup logs in the temp directory of your system. They will contain detailed inforamtion about why the setup failed. I had a similar installation problem with Visual Studio 2008 which I was able to resolve by studying the logs.

I think this sort of question is entirely appropriate to the forum, especially if an easy solution can be found, as would save others hours of pain.

Unfortunately I dont have the solution, but would suggest (if you haven't already)

1. Run FileMon to see if the installer is looking for specific files which are no longer there - this may give some clues.

2. Painful, but try uninstalling other apps based upon the VS shell (eg 2005) first.

Thanks, riaraos, uninstalling KB952241 was the solution for me, too. Before doing that I tried to run the installer from "Programs and Features" and from the installation DVD without success. I did not want to completely remove the VS 2008 installation but only add a few components.

Notes on my system:

Windows 7 Beta 1 Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Okay I had the same issues first my VS2008 was acting up so i tried to uninstall it and it didn't work...I read online that using an AutoUninstall by MS will do the trick it did just that , but left a lot of nasty files behind..

So i used "Windows Install Clean Up" and cleaned up more stuff that had to do with VS.. then went back into Add and remove in control panel Removed the KB952241... then opened up Ccleaner and scanned the registry found a lot of left behind crap from VB2008 removed all that once that was done.

I went ahead and launch the installed back from the CD again and BAM its working.

I did all this without having to restart my PC..

Hope this helps people who are stuck..like i was

Windows 7 suggested to "Uninstall using recommended settings" after hitting OK in the error message. It solved the problem.

Solution to this is

http://www.dotnetzone.gr/cs/forums/48758/ShowThread.aspx#48758