visual studiowindowswindows update
Can I set Windows Update to include also updates to Visual Studio Beta?
For example, Microsoft just announced April update for Visual Studio 11 Beta. It would be great, if I was able to install them the same way I install updates for Windows, Office, etc.
I know this question does not explicitly mention Parallels, but maybe some of my settings/experience there will be transferable to settings with VMWare Fusion. I am running a MacBook Pro running on OS X 10.7.3 with an Intel Core i7 2.2GHz and 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory for my RAM. The version of Parallels I am using is Parallels 7.
Some important notes before I go into my configuration:
I am a developer with MSDN access. Under my MSDN account, I have access to Office 2010 including the Mac version (I mention this as, in many cases, Office will be a necessity and therefore an important consideration - while I could install both, there's also the cost in disk space). This also meant that cost was less of a concern here as I had access to everything I needed via MSDN.
One other thing I should note is that I would not recommend converting a VMWare virtual machine to a Parallels virtual machine as I experienced several issues with this and ended up doing a clean install.
So after about 1 month of configuring my VM, I've come down to a pretty nice configuration where I am experiencing very smooth performance. I have been very happy with this configuration and it's quite convenient over the alternative of rebooting to get to my Windows machine. Below I will address the Parallels settings that I feel have made this successful in addition to the software I am using on the VM, some important items regarding Windows 7 settings and a $1 program I would suggest every Mac owner would benefit from (but really a necessity for anyone using a VM on a Mac):
VM software:
VM settings:
General
Options
Optimization
Free Space: Automatically compress virtual hard disks: true (this hasn't caused any performance issues for me, so I have kept this on)
Security
All options set to false, Encryption is not on, Undo Disks is set to Disable
Applications
Email: Open in mac
Coherence
Disable Windows Aero: false (you'll get better performance if you disable this, I'm just a very visual person and decided I like to keep Aero on in Coherence mode)
Full Screen
Use Mac OS X Full Screen: true
Advanced
SmartMouse: Auto
Hardware
Video
Mac Software
In the Store Settings you can select that all Store Apps are updated automatically. Set this option.
The message in Visual Studio comes from an Visual Studio extension. This is independent from Windows. In the VS2015 option you can also turn on automatic updates for Visual Studio extensions:
Best Answer
To setup Windows update to scan for Microsoft or other products it can update you will need to do the following:
Start menu -> Windows update
near the middle/bottom you will see text talking about updating other products on your system, click on the blue text and it should either pop up a website in Internet explorer, or ask if you want to allow it.
If it asks you to allow/deny, clicking allow, and then checking for updates should now give you additional updates that you seek
If it pops up a website, you'll need to follow the guide on it, then check "i accept" and hit the apply equivalent button with the shield on it
It should now take you back to your Windows update, and the text will still be there, you need to click on the blue link again, and go back to 3a.