BizTalk 2013 Installation and Configuration – Install Visual Studio 2012 (Part 6)

The BizTalk Server development tools are based on Visual Studio. And like previous versions, at a minimum, you must have the Microsoft Visual C#® .NET component of Visual Studio installed on your computer if you wish to install the BizTalk Server Developer Tools and SDK component.

Note: Visual Studio 2012 is not required if you are installing BizTalk Server on a production computer (runtime only), on which no application development or debugging is required to be done.

The BizTalk Server runtime components require .NET Framework 4.5. In addition, the .NET Framework 3.0 is required if the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) adapter or WCF Interceptor is installed.

However, unlike previous versions of Visual Studio and the official documentation, with Visual Studio 2012 you cannot customize the features to install to the point of only install Visual C#, at least that I know of.

To install Visual Studio 2012:

  • Insert the Visual Studio 2012 installation disk into the DVD-ROM drive.
  • On the Start page, accept the license agreement by selecting “I agree to the License terms and conditions” and then click “Next”.
BizTalk Server 2013 Visual Studio 2013 Start
  • On the Optional features to install page, you can clear all features, however, I think that is important at least to install “Microsoft Web Developer Tools“. Add the following features to your installation:
    • Microsoft Web Developer Tools
    • Microsoft Office Developer Tools (not required)
BizTalk Server 2013 Visual Studio 2013 Optional features
  • And then click “Install”
  • On the Finish page, close the window or click “Launch”.
BizTalk Server 2013 Visual Studio 2013 Finish

Important Note: Your version of Visual Studio will include Microsoft SQL Server Express or compact as an optional feature. This feature it may cause BizTalk Server setup to fail and should not be installed but as we cannot customize the Visual Studio 2012 installation, we should remove this features afterward.

Remove Microsoft SQL Server Express

As I say previous your version of Visual Studio will include Microsoft SQL Server Express or compact as an optional feature. This feature may cause BizTalk Server setup to fail and should not be installed but as we cannot customize the Visual Studio 2012 installation, it’s very important that we remove these features.

To avoid futures complications I choose to uninstall these two features:

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Express LocalBd
  • Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0 SP1 x4 ENU: Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0 is a free, embedded database that software developers can use for building ASP.NET websites and Windows desktop applications. SQL Server Compact 4.0 has a small footprint and supports the private deployment of its binaries within the application folder, easy application development in Visual Studio and WebMatrix, and seamless migration of schema and data to SQL Server

To uninstall these features:

  • Press the “Windows key” to switch to Metro UI.
  • Type “Programs and Features” and click on “Programs and Features” option on the Settings menu.
BizTalk Server 2013 Visual Studio 2013 Programs Features
  • Select “Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Express LocalBd” and click “Uninstall”.
BizTalk Server 2013 Visual Studio 2013 Uninstall Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Express LocalBd
  • Repeat the process, select “Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0 SP1 x4 ENU” and click “Uninstall”.

Use Command-Line Parameters to Install Visual Studio

Visual Studio as an unattended (that is, customized silent) installation.
To do this we need:

  • In the root of the DVD (image), you will find a file ‘AdminDeployment.xml’. We need to copy this file to a local folder;
  • Next, we edit the AdminDeployment.xml file, as per in the Microsoft instructions, and change the Selected attributes to our likings.
  • Then call the installer: vs_ultimate /AdminFile [yourpath]\admindeployment.xml

Thank you Peter Vervoorn for your comment (unfortunately during the migration process to this new blog, his comment was not migrated) and for providing this solution.

Related links

Author: Sandro Pereira

Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc. He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community.

8 thoughts on “BizTalk 2013 Installation and Configuration – Install Visual Studio 2012 (Part 6)”

  1. I’m following this guide to install my new BizTalk 2013 DEV environment, and when installing VS2012 on my Win2012 VM I encountered a problem with the installer. It kept crashing on me… Adding the registry-key mentioned in this blog post fixed my problem: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/smondal/archive/2013/09/23/the-pipe-is-being-closed.aspx

    I thought it might be useful for other people facing the same problem.

    Thanks for making this superb guide Sandro!

  2. Hi Sandro,

    Thanks a ton for all that you do for BizTalk community. I stay humbled.

    I was installing BT 2013 R2 and ended up installing VS 2012 by mistake and my BizTalk server installation dint give me the SDK option, it is more of my fault since your post clearly says it is for BizTalk 2013 but somewhere I was following your later posts in this series ,the initial post starts with BT 2013 and later it switches to BT 2013 R2 .

    This is the greatest post series I have come across for BT 2013 R2 installation. It would be great if a note is there somewhere mentioning VS 2013 is needed in case you are installing BizTalk 2013 r2.

    Regards

  3. someone is stating that BizTalk must be installed first BEFORE visual studio can be installed to the same server: I doubt that highly after all what sort of product would want a peripheral tool installed before an application such as BizTalk??!!
    any comments highly welcomed.

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