5 ms·

Visual Studio is an IDE that takes 19 hours to install.

by throwaway7645 9y ago

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
A literal 19 hours? Or just "a really long time"?
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  I'm being a little bit ridiculous, but most people I know run it overnight. I did an install recently and several hours was correct for the IDE + data science pack. Put another way, I could install Haskell, Python, Ruby, Perl, Free Pascal, Dyalog APL, Nim, Elixir, Julia, and a few more with time to spare. Granted, the data science pack in VS comes with R and Anaconda Python, but still it is insanely big by almost any standard. I think at that point it's time to take a step back and evaluate modern programming practices (after I uninstall a bunch of junk ;)). Could a .NET expert break it down for me why VS takes the size and memory it does. I know why VS Code needs 150 MB of RAM (JavaScript), but VS should be written in C++ right?
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    VS is written in WPF since VS 2010. The last native version was 2008 which was much faster.
    - throwaway7645 9y ago
      So big slowdown from C++ to C#?
- qu4z-2 9y ago
  I guess it depends on your hardware/internet. Last time I tried it it was 4+ hours on my non-devbox (aka <16G RAM, etc) laptop.
  - maccard 9y ago
    Had a mishap last week and reinstalled vs on my workstation after. Took about 15 minutes from a pre downloaded image
    - qu4z-2 9y ago
      Maybe they've improved it since I last used it (was two or three years ago now). But you say reinstalled? Is it possible it only reinstalled the VS-proper components and not all of the dependencies that the first-time install pulls in?
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Several hours for sure. Sometimes I wonder how I would go about building an installer that slow. I am not sure how to do that.
sogen 9y ago
Been there
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
The latest version is much better for install times as long as you have fast internet.
daemin 9y ago
It used to take many hours to install if you were installing it from a CD, DVD, or spinny HDD onto a spinny HDD. The last time I had to install it, I did it from and to an SSD, and including patches and extensions it took about half an hour. The main culprit was extracting and copying all of the small source files that come with it.
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  That makes sense. It still seems odd that every other tool I've used takes a small fraction of that.
  - daemin 9y ago
    Installing big c++ libraries also takes a long time sometimes, for example when decompressing Boost onto your drive. Lots of little files that need to be written.

Visual Studio is an IDE that takes 19 hours to install.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

A literal 19 hours? Or just "a really long time"?

throwaway7645 9y ago
I'm being a little bit ridiculous, but most people I know run it overnight. I did an install recently and several hours was correct for the IDE + data science pack. Put another way, I could install Haskell, Python, Ruby, Perl, Free Pascal, Dyalog APL, Nim, Elixir, Julia, and a few more with time to spare. Granted, the data science pack in VS comes with R and Anaconda Python, but still it is insanely big by almost any standard. I think at that point it's time to take a step back and evaluate modern programming practices (after I uninstall a bunch of junk ;)). Could a .NET expert break it down for me why VS takes the size and memory it does. I know why VS Code needs 150 MB of RAM (JavaScript), but VS should be written in C++ right?
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  VS is written in WPF since VS 2010. The last native version was 2008 which was much faster.
  - throwaway7645 9y ago
    So big slowdown from C++ to C#?
qu4z-2 9y ago
I guess it depends on your hardware/internet. Last time I tried it it was 4+ hours on my non-devbox (aka <16G RAM, etc) laptop.
- maccard 9y ago
  Had a mishap last week and reinstalled vs on my workstation after. Took about 15 minutes from a pre downloaded image
  - qu4z-2 9y ago
    Maybe they've improved it since I last used it (was two or three years ago now). But you say reinstalled? Is it possible it only reinstalled the VS-proper components and not all of the dependencies that the first-time install pulls in?
maxxxxx 9y ago
Several hours for sure. Sometimes I wonder how I would go about building an installer that slow. I am not sure how to do that.

sogen 9y ago

Been there

tonyedgecombe 9y ago

The latest version is much better for install times as long as you have fast internet.

daemin 9y ago

It used to take many hours to install if you were installing it from a CD, DVD, or spinny HDD onto a spinny HDD. The last time I had to install it, I did it from and to an SSD, and including patches and extensions it took about half an hour. The main culprit was extracting and copying all of the small source files that come with it.

throwaway7645 9y ago
That makes sense. It still seems odd that every other tool I've used takes a small fraction of that.
- daemin 9y ago
  Installing big c++ libraries also takes a long time sometimes, for example when decompressing Boost onto your drive. Lots of little files that need to be written.