In search of wisdom...

Following are the steps to troubleshoot Visual Studio 2008 setup problems: -

1. Download the FREE VSTS software from- http://bit.ly/OxdIK
2. Ensure that all of the pre-release (Beta or CTP versions) components on your machine have been removed:
3. Install the latest Windows updates from the Windows Update site: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
4. Check if there are any anti-virus or antispyware applications running. Make sure they are turned off during installation.
5. Make sure that the installation media is healthy. If the installation from disc drive is not working well, you can try copying the contents of the disc to the hard disk and installing from the hard disk.
6. Complete or dismiss Windows Update before installation. (and don't forget to turn it on later)
7. If the installation fails, you can collect the setup log file and analyze them.
Clean up the temporary folder (Open the menu “Start” “Run” and run “%TEMP%” without quotation marks) and reproduce installation failure. The log files will be generated in the temporary folder.
You can also utilize the collect tool from here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/attachment/8483493.ashx

Note - After running the tool, you can go to your %TEMP% folder to find the file vslogs.cab by clicking on the “Start” menu, choosing Run and running “%TEMP%” (without quotation marks). It may take some time for the tool to collect log files on your machine. Please be patient.
For more information, see: Visual Studio and .NET Log Collection Utility
http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2008/05/09/visual-studio-and-net-log-collection-utility.aspx

8. Try using Process Monitor to track whether there is any file/registry access related issue.
Process Monitor:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/processmonitor.mspx
The log can be large and you can make use of “Filter” feature to filter the result.
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Visual Studio is the leading developer tool on the market, and I would like to share with you some tips and tricks that will make this great tool even more powerful. Getting familiar with a tool is crucial to getting the most out of the tool, and development tools and IDEs are no different.
Following is a list of tips and tricks which I have aggregated from my own knowledge and different online forums.
I hope they all be useful to us. For a free trial of the new Visual Studio Team System, Click here

Keyboard Shortcuts

F5:- Debug Start
F10:- Debug Step Over
F4:- View Properties
F7:- Toggles between design and code views.
F9:- Toggles breakpoint.
F12:- Go to definition of a variable, object, or function.
Ctrl+Shift+7Ctrl+Shift+8:- Quickly navigate forward and backwards in the go to definition stack.
Shift+F12:- Find all references of a function or a variable.
Ctrl+M, Ctrl+M: - Expand and collapse code outlining in the editor.
Ctrl+K, Ctrl+CCtrl+K, Ctrl+U: - Comment and uncomment line(s) of code, respectively.
Shift+Alt+Enter: - Toggles between full screen mode and normal mode.
Ctrl+I: - Incremental Search.
Ctrl+Shift+ - View AutoCloseTagOverride
Shift+F7 – View Designer
Ctrl+PgDn - ViewNextView
Ctrl+PgUp – WindowPreviousTab
CTRL + SHIFT + B - Build.BuildSolution
CTRL + F7 - Build.Compile
SHIFT + ALT + A - File.AddExistingItem
CTRL + SHIFT + A - File.AddNewItem
Ctrl+M,Ctrl+M - Will collapse the Code block, when you do the reverse (again pressing the same Key-pairs) then it will get expanded.
Ctrl+Shift+. - Auto close Tag override
Shift+F7 - View Designer
Ctrl+PgDn - Next View
Ctrl+PgUp - Previous Tab
End- Document End
Shift+End- Document EndExtend
Home- DocumentStart
Shift+Home- DocumentStartExtend

If you guys have some additional shortcuts, please feel free to add in the comments section. Thanks.

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