unknown error message in vs 10 beta 2

Question

I just installed beta2 and cannot run it because of the following error.

Locating source for 'f:\dd\vb\runtime\msvbalib\Strings.vb'. Checksum: MD5 {14 e5 e 7f 4b 9f 8b 5 25 c9 c4 8b f7 2e bb 8b}
The file 'f:\dd\vb\runtime\msvbalib\Strings.vb' does not exist.
Looking in script documents for 'f:\dd\vb\runtime\msvbalib\Strings.vb'...
Looking in the projects for 'f:\dd\vb\runtime\msvbalib\Strings.vb'.
The file was not found in a project.
Looking in directory 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\vc7\atlmfc'...
Looking in directory 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\vc7\crt'...
Looking in directory 'C:\'...
Looking for source using source server...
Source was found using source server: C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\SymbolCache\src\source\dotnetfx35sp1_3053\1.3\DEVDIV\depot\DevDiv\releases\whidbey\netfxsp\vb\runtime\msvbalib\Strings.vb\1\Strings.vb
The debugger will not ask the user to find the file: f:\dd\vb\runtime\msvbalib\Strings.vb.
The debugger could not locate the source file 'f:\dd\vb\runtime\msvbalib\Strings.vb'.

What does it mean and how do I get rid of it?

Thanks
Dick Roose

Answer 1

More context would help. What are you doing when you get this message string? This seems to be debugger spew which is just informational and shouldn't prevent using the product.

-Steve

Answer 2

Thanks Steve, I have move on, uninstalled and re installed the beta.  Now I have more problems than I had before.  Is there anyway to completely erase the old install, clean the registry and start over short of formatting the hard disk and reinstalling windows?
Thanks
dcroose

Answer 3

The Uninstallation section in the readme is a start:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/5/3/B5379D88-51D7-4240-9423-CE1427502784/VS2010Beta2Readme.htm#Uninstalling

Here's the things I would try - though backup first. Any mucking around with program files, registry, and windows folders may well totally hose the machine and require an OS reinstall anyway.

Make sure the 'c:\program files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0' folder is deleted.
In regedit, under the 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio' key, delete all 10.0 folders

The 4.0 CLR runtime folder is 'c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.20506' but I don't think you'll be able to get rid of that due to system file protection. Maybe in a safe-boot though you may end up really hosing something and need to reinstall the OS.

If all that doesn't work, you're probably going to have to reinstall the OS. I imagine you had some sort of install/uninstall failure that's left you in an undeterminate state so that VS won't run properly and it won't uninstall properly. Unfortunately that's a risk of beta software.