Visual Studio setup problem - 'A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.'

Question

I\'ve had a serious issue with my Visual Studio 2008 setup. I receive the ever-so-useful error \'A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components.

Answer 1

Windows 7 suggested to "Uninstall using recommended settings" after hitting OK in the error message. It solved the problem.

Answer 2

In my case, installing visual studio SP1 unbroke the uninstall/repair functionality.

Answer 3

I have Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition, and had to remove all updates and Hotfixes:

• Update KB972221
• Hotfix KB973674
• Hotfix KB971091

Reboot, then the following Hotfix appeared, which I then removed as per @riaraos' answer:

• Hotfix KB952241

Before the Change/Remove would work!

Hope that helps someone else.

Answer 4

A colleague found this MS auto-uninstall tool which has successfully uninstalled VS2008 for me and saved me hours of work!!

Hopefully this might be useful to others. Doesn't speak highly of MS's faith in their usual VS maintenance tools that they have to provide this as well!

Answer 5

Okay I had the same issues first my VS2008 was acting up so i tried to uninstall it and it didn't work...I read online that using an AutoUninstall by MS will do the trick it did just that , but left a lot of nasty files behind..

So i used "Windows Install Clean Up" and cleaned up more stuff that had to do with VS.. then went back into Add and remove in control panel Removed the KB952241... then opened up Ccleaner and scanned the registry found a lot of left behind crap from VB2008 removed all that once that was done.

I went ahead and launch the installed back from the CD again and BAM its working.

I did all this without having to restart my PC..

Hope this helps people who are stuck..like i was

Answer 6

I encountered the same problem and found a very easy solution.Go to the following Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/bb968856.aspx

and run VS AutoUninstall tool .This will automatically remove all the components of VS 2008.

Cheers