(AKA how I lost a morning)

Hello!

This morning I needed to update my version of SSDT, but before I could do that I needed to update Visual Studio 2017:

Awkward wording of an error message aside, let’s update Visual Studio 2017.

But how?

I just started VS 2017, and no alert popped upstating that there was a new version available…. I go to Help -> About…. nope, that’s not it. Help -> Send Feedback -> Settings… nope, that’s not it either. How about Tools -> Options?

There’s no way I’m going to read that!

So, in the tried and trusted way of the 21st Century, I consult the online documentation. Turns out there’s a small yellow flag in the top corner that I need to click to read notifications, which tells me that there is indeed a new version of VS 2017.

This then opens up “Extension and Updates”…

..which then tells me that I need to update Visual Studio Installer. Argh!

At this point, I’m beginning to lose the will to live.

Once this completed it then automatically kicked off the update to VS 2017. Why the Installer update isn’t part of the VS 2017 update I have no idea, but there you go.

But wait, there’s more! I now need to close things. OK, I can live with this.

Now I am getting somewhere…

Apropos of nothing, I really like the hexagons in the VS2017 UI. They look neat.

So let’s try this again…

…

No! Turns out I have to close the installer, re-open and then run again… OK, I’ve done that…

OK, let’s go back and close down VS 2017 and try once more (surely the last time)…

Boom Zahramay! now to go make a cup of team whilst SSDT updates.

So although this post may come across as a whinge, what it really shows is that VS 2017 still lags in terms of updating: you compare this process to package management, and it’s appalling. There’s been a big improvement in terms of the size of an install, but there’s still work to be done to make the update process faster and more efficient: it’s probably not beyond the scope of installing SSDT to include an option to update VS 2017. And it’s certainly not beyond the scope of installing VS 2017 to update the installer automatically, surely?