Installation Options

During Setup you will be asked to choose between Typical, Full, and Custom installation options. The Typical setup option allows you to run the MSDN Library from the CD. Setup will copy the minimum set of files to your local hard disk. These files include the MSDN viewer system files, contents index files, and Help files that are used by the Visual Studio development products.

Custom installation allows you to specify local installation of a subset of the MSDN Library. The files you select will be copied to your local hard disk along with the files mentioned in the Typical Setup description. You will still see the entire Library table of contents. If you select content that has not been installed locally, you will be prompted to insert the MSDN Library CD.

You can speed up your searches and reduce the amount of CD swapping that is needed by selecting certain custom installation options.

To reduce CD swapping

• Install the documentation you use most frequently to your local hard disk. This will reduce the need to access the MSDN CD-ROM, freeing up your CD drive for other uses.

For faster full-text searches

• Install the Full-Text Index to your local hard disk.

Note   The Full-Text Index is around 100 MB (the exact size is shown in the custom installation dialog box), so be sure that you have enough hard disk space before installing it.

To install additional documentation or the Full-Text Index

1. Click Start, Settings, then Control Panel.
   
   
2. Double-click Add/Remove Programs. The Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box appears.
   
   
3. From the list of programs, select Microsoft Developer Network Library – VS <version X>.
   
   
4. Click Add/Remove. MSDN VS <version X> Setup will start.
   
   
5. Click the Add/Remove option. The MSDN VS <version X> Custom dialog box appears. This is the same dialog box that is seen when a custom install is chosen during setup.
   
   
6. Check off the items you want to install.
   
   
7. Click Continue to complete the installation process.

Running the MSDN Library from a Network Folder

Note   The MSDN Library is licensed to a single user. (For more information, see the MSDN Master license agreement file. It is named EULA.TXT and resides on Disc 1 in the Setup directory.) This section applies only to those individuals or organizations who have acquired additional user licenses for the MSDN Library via the Microsoft Open License Program (MOLP) or otherwise. You may share the Library only to licensed users. For information on MOLP, contact your software reseller, or visit http://www.microsoft.com/select/.

An efficient way for one or several licensed users to access the MSDN Library is to create a shared installation folder on a network computer's hard drive, and make it accessible to the licensed users in your group. MSDN strongly recommends that you copy all the files in the Library to a shared hard disk drive rather than trying to share a CD-ROM drive. This yields better performance for multiple users accessing the Library over a network.

To correctly create the folder, all contents from the MSDN Library Disc 1 and Disc 2 must be combined into one folder with the identical directory structure as Disc 1. You can easily create this folder by first copying all files from Disc 1 to the folder and then copying all files from Disc 2 to the same location.

You must first select a hard disk drive with sufficient space. A minimum of 1.5-GB hard disk drive space is recommended. Depending on your operating system and hardware, the Library will probably take between 775 MB and 1.5 GB of space on your hard disk drive.

To correctly create the network installation folder, all contents from the MSDN Library Disc 1 and Disc 2 must be combined into one folder with the identical directory structure as Disc 1. Setup will fail if a user attempts a full installation of the MSDN Library from a share that has the contents of Disc 1 and Disc 2 in separate folders.

Important   Do not share the network installation folder while you are copying. It will likely cause you problems if someone runs Setup while you are copying the Library.

To copy the Library contents to a network folder

Complete the following steps in order to place the Library on a network folder for better performance over a network.

1. Put the CD-ROM drive on a system that has read/write/update permission to the network installation computer. The process will run much faster if the CD-ROM drive and the hard disk drive are on the same computer.
   
   
2. Copy all files from MSDN Library Disc 1 to the folder and then copy all files from Disc 2 to the same location.
   
   
3. Share the hard disk drive (that is, make it accessible to users). Go to a different computer and run Setup on the client computer from the shared hard disk drive. After you have verified that the Library runs properly from the client computer, you can announce to your users that it's ready for their use.

That's all there is to it. Pretty simple, really—copy everything to the same folder while no one is using the CD-ROM drive from which you're copying or the shared hard drive to which you're copying. Then verify that it works by running Setup and opening the Library from a client computer.

Here are some additional guidelines for installing the Library to a network folder:

• The folder should be made read-only after you have created it.
  
  
• The network computer should have enough bandwidth to handle the anticipated load.
  
  
• The network computer should be able to handle the required number of concurrent client connections.
  
  
• The network computer should not use a compressed file system, unless this is commensurate with the hardware and the anticipated load.