Visual Studio 2010 beta 2

With the impending snow, I'm working at home this morning. The folks in the office arranged for a test of Visual Studio 2010, and I can install it on my home Windows PC. (It runs Windows 7RC, not Windows XP, but the Visual Studio experience should be the same.)

I cannot comment on Visual Studio 2010, as I have been unable to complete the install. I'm a bit disappointed with it (the install program). The package is so large that it requires four CDs. That is not unusual with today's software. What I find disappointing is the user interface for the multi-CD unpacking operation.

Gone is the traditional SETUP.EXE program, or even the newer .MSI file. Instead the CDs contain .part1 and .rar files, and its not clear what I should do with them. Gone also is the "start on load" function; after inserting the first CD, Windows popped up a small dialog asking me what it should do with the new-found media and offering only the choice of opening Windows Explorer.

Double-clicking on the first CD's only file starts what appears to be a "combine and unpack" program. It asked me for a destination directory, but the messages are unclear as to the nature of this directory. Is it the permanent location of the program files, or is it a temporary holding place? I assume the latter and pick a convenient directory. (The program defaults to the CD-ROM drive, which seems a silly default.)

As the "combine and unpack" program needs another CD, it pops up a dialog and demands the CD. But the message is not the traditional "Please insert disk N"; it is a more cryptic "You need to have the following volume to continue" with the name of the file on CD 2, although you don't know that.

And there is no "Eject" button on the dialog. (A minor complaint, but a feature I have gotten used to on SuSE Linux install packages.)

Now, after two successful CDs, the install program complains about CD number 3. It reports that the wrong media has been installed. It gives me one choice: to close the program. There was a short time when Windows was "checking for a solution" but that process seems to have stopped with no results. A second attempt at the install yields identical results.

So far, my impression of the install program is that it has been hacked together with available utilities, not written as a professional program. I would expect this of a program for release within Microsoft, not to the public. (Not even for a beta 2 release, which should be pretty close to the "real deal".)