MCMS Installation Woes

Installing MCMS 2002 SP1a on my laptop proved quite difficult this week.  This is one product that Microsoft really did not focus on the install experience.

I first tried to install it without Visual Studio 2003.  It complained, so I got Visual Studio Installed.  It also asked for the IE Web Controls, so I downloaded those, extracted it, and ran the build.bat file.  I copied the sample app as directed and everything was working there.

I didn’t have SQL Server installed locally, so I didn’t have SQL-DMO, but the installer didn’t tell me how to get it.  It kept complaining that I didn’t have Visual Studio 2002, Visual Studio 2003, IE Web Controls, and SQL-DMO, when I clearly had 2 of those 4.

I installed the SQL Client tools and that solved the SQL-DMO requirement.  Then I found an MSI installer for IE Web Controls, and that did the trick there (apparently it doesn’t REALLY check to see if you have it, it just checks the Add/Remove Programs section).  Visual Studio 2002 isn’t really required, the wording is just off on the installer.

That was a waste of a day.  I could have gotten much more accomplished if this installation had been easier.