14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is providing a utility which allows customers running the latest iteration of its development platform and tools to provide additional, in-depth feedback about any deployment problems. By leveraging the Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET Framework Log Collection Tool, developers will be able to harvest installation-related information from Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET Framework. According to the Redmond company, the tool is in no way limited to Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4, as devs can easily use it with older versions of VS and .NET.
“The Collection Tool will collect available logs from all Visual Studio 2005, 2008, 2010 and .Net Framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 release installations on your computer. If you encounter any setup issues and contact Microsoft Support or Visual Studio on Microsoft Connect, you may need to provide relevant installation logs,” Microsoft informed. “Please follow the instructions below to gather Visual Studio and .NET Framework installation logs. The utility creates a compressed cabinet of all the Visual Studio and .NET Framework logs at %TEMP%\vslogs.cab.”
Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4 earlier this year. As of April 2010, the company’s latest versions of VS and .NET have been available to developers around the world. The Visual Studio and .NET Framework Log Collection Tool is set up to streamline collection of event logs in the eventuality that something goes wrong during the development process. In order to leverage the resource, devs will need to run it from a console window with elevated privileges.
“Run Collect.exe from the directory where you saved the tool to,” the company explained. “The tool must be run under the same user account that the failed installation was run under. If you are running the tool from a different user account, set the –user:<name> option to specify the user under which the failed installation was run. You may also set –d:<dir> to point to the temp directory where the setup logs are located. By default, Collect.exe will automatically gather SQL install logs, event log information, computer information and a Windows Installer inventory in addition to product install logs. The result cabinet is created in %TEMP%. Run Collect -? for additional options and usage information.”
Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET Framework Log Collection Tool is available for download here.
Visual Studio 2010 Premium is available for download here.
Visual Studio 2010 Professional is available for download here.
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate is available for download here.
Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 is available for download here.
.NET Framework 4 RTM is available for download here.