Running Micorosoft.FSharp.Core.msi does not repair installation of F# SDK, nor does a Visual Studio 2017 Repair

[abelbraaksma]

This may well be a known issue, but we have several places where we suggest that if you overwrite your local SDK tools with a local built or version of those tools, that you can run Visual Studio 2017 Setup to repair said tools.

This doesn't work. I tested several scenarios and it is repeatable.

Repro steps

Repro 1

1. Install Visual Studio 2017 + F# on a clean system
2. Check C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\F#\4.1\Framework\v4.0, the date on fsc.exe is probably Sept 6, or Aug 18, depending on the version
3. Do a local built of master, and copy relevant bits from net40\bin over to the SDK location (or use update-vsintegration.cmd, but for this repro that's not relevant)
4. Run VS2017 Setup and select Repair.

Repro 2

1. Same as above in step 1, 2 and 3
2. Run F# 4.1 SDK setup (http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/3/D/F3D6045E-4040-4058-ADAD-2698F1793CBC/Microsoft.FSharp.SDK.Core.msi)

Expected behavior

Either an error that it cannot install itself because a newer version exists, or better, fix the installation, or even better, give an option to repair the installation.

In the case of VS2017 setup: it should repair when you click repair, otherwise this option is rather useless.

Actual behavior

Repairing the installation in any way doesn't repair all of it, especially not the F# SDK bits.

Known workarounds

What I did is rename v4.0 to v4.0.old and installed again. However, I have no clue if this is a "complete" fix (think registry entries, files in other locations). It seems to work though.

[KevinRansom]

This is a good catch. And yet another reason to move the Compiler into the vsix. I am for sure going to look at that this weekend.

[abelbraaksma]

As an aside, there seems to be a bug in responding to the email, just like in your previous message, the entire email is copied in (also in some other threads), including the links to unsubscribe you from the discussion threads. I'd imagine that's not a good thing...

[cartermp]

We now deploy everything side by side and as a vsix, so this is likely not a problem anymore.

[abelbraaksma]

Fantastic!