When Installing Visual Studio 2008, Uninstall Everything First and Backup

Scott Guthrie has a nice post about what to uninstall BEFORE installing the RTM version of Visual Studio 2008.    Possible components are:

• Remove “MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Beta”
• Remove “Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5”
• Remove “Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 Design Tools”
• Remove “Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 for Devices”
• Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio Performance Collection Tools”
• Remove “Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK R2 for Pocket PC”
• Remove “Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK R2 for Smartphone”
• Remove “Crystal Reports 2007”
• Remove “Visual Studio Asset System”
• Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component / Microsoft Web Designer Tools”
• Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Runtime”
• Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Runtime Language Pack” (non-English editions only)
• Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime 3.0”
• Remove “Microsoft Document Explorer”
• Remove “Microsoft Document Explorer 2005 Language Pack” (non-English editions only)
• Remove “Microsoft Device Emulator 3.0”
• Remove “Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 3.5”
• Remove “Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP1”
• Remove “.NET Framework 2.0 SDK”
• Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio Codename Orcas Remote Debugger”
• Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio 64bit Prerequisites Beta” (64-bit platforms only)
• Remove “Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5”

It’s important to backup any changes to the settings you made to your development environment, such as fonts, colors, etc.    This is done through the Tools menu and select Import/Export Settings.

It’s also a good idea to backup your entire system.  I don’t see this kind of advice enough but I back up using Acronis TrueImage and get a good copy of my system out to my external USB drive, just in case either uninstalling does not work or the new install fails or maybe I uninstalled too much.

UPDATE: Rick Strahl has the RTM up and running, so check out his post for details.