A rant on Visual Studio Updates

I wanted to access a Github Repository through Visual Studio on a machine that had Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2.

I learn that Visual Studio 2013 comes pre-packaged with Git support and it is nice that there is a Express edition (Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 with Update 3 for Web) that can be downloaded for free. Unfortunately, it needs Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 which is a huge download so I choose to go with Visual Studio 2012, which I already have.

VS 2012 needs Visual Studio Tools for Git. Visual Studio Tools for Git requires Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 before it can be installed.

The download link cannot be copied so I type it out to get Visual Studio 2012 Update 2. That link takes me to a page that will be let me download Visual Studio 2012 Update 4 (not 2).


Fine. I download VS2012.4 which is just 1.3MB and proceed to install it.


Before I do that I get this notification that "This installation will update all the Visual Studio 2012 products and languages which are currently installed". I click on the More Information link to see if there is anything I can exclude. But no, I can't.


The installation plans to install 3GB worth of updates. You can't escape from software updates. I suddenly lose interest in what I set out to do.
Am I sure, I want to cancel setup? Oh yes!

Update (15/Sep/2014): I got around installing Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1(903 MB). It took a couple of hours and a restart.

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 with Update 3 for Web needs IE 11 to work best. 
IE 11 has an option to have new versions installed automatically, enabled by default

After a couple of computer restarts and about 4 hours to finish installing, I was able to start using Visual Studio Express 2013. In the future, I'll probably use a VM from Azure and RDP into it rather than go through all this installation business.

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