Fake a VS2010 install to get Spec Explorer 2010 install rolling!

Last time I blogged about how I got Spec Explorer 2010 plugin for Visual Studio working on VS2013, VS2015 and VS2017 which were previously thought NOT to be supported. Thanks to Microsoft's great extensibility framework and its backwards compatible design, using Spec Explorer 2010 in these later versions IS a reality.

During the course of my research to get this working I noticed a lot of users complaining that they could no longer download VS2010 to get the Spec Explorer 2010 install rolling as there is some logic in the MSI that detects whether that software is installed and only allows the plugin to be installed if it is.

In this blog I provide instructions on how to fake the VS2010 install which gets the Spec Explorer 2010 plugin installed. You can then follow the procedure from my previous blog to install SE2010 on later versions.


Fake the VS 2010 install

1. Download the .reg file from here: Fake VS2010 install

2. Run the .reg file on the machine that you want to install SE2010

3. Install Microsoft .NET 4.0 (If you don't do this you will get an install error explaining that SpecExplorer.ObjectModel.dll cannot be installed at a file location, which is actually the GAC location. No .NET. No GAC)

4. Run the SpecExplorer.msi <<< The install will run to the end and install all you need.

Follow the procedure in my previous blog which is essentially these steps:

5. Install the later version of VS that you want SE2010 to work in. In the following steps I have chosen VS2013.

6. Navigate to 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft' (the old version location)
7. Copy the folder called 'Spec Explorer 2010'
8. Navigate to 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft' (note: Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0 is confusingly VS2013)
9. Paste the 'Spec Explorer 2010' folder there
10. Reboot your machine
11. Open VS2103 <<< 'Spec Explorer' appears in the menu bar

So far the procedures in my blog work for users of the Windows 7 operating system next time... Getting Spec Explorer 2010 installed on a machine which has the Windows 10 operating system