1. Download the Visual Studio 2008 Express ISO to your local system and mount it using something like MagicDisk.
2. Locate the “VBExpress” directory and copy it somewhere locally.
3. Run ixpvb.exe, this will extract the setup files to your local drive. Mine got extracted to:
   C:\057f3ad5975a04eeddb339635a50

   Copy the files to somewhere, and then discard the notification that you must run setup.exe to install the software. The temporary directory will be automatically removed when you dismiss the dialog.

   At this point, it’s now safe to remove the “VBExpress” directory you copied earlier.

4. Make sure the dependencies are installed. These are: Windows Installer 3.1, .Net Framework 1.1 + SP1, .Net Framework 2.0 + SP1, .Net Framework 3.0. Reboot after they’ve been installed.
5. Then run the command that makes it all happen.

   msiexec /i vs_setup.msi VSEXTUI=1 ADDLOCAL=ALL REBOOT=ReallySuppress /qn

   Assuming that works, you know you’re good to go.

   You should be able to then create a simple transform to set the VSEXTUI, ADDLOCAL and REBOOT properties and then deploy via Group Policy Software Installation. Be sure to make sure all your target systems have the dependencies installed.

If anyone runs into a problem leave a comment and I’ll see if we can work out where things are going wrong.

1: Download the offline installer
First things first, get the offline installer for Visual Studio 2008 Express.

2: Extract the files from the ISO
Grab whichever edition you want to deploy from the ISO you’ve just downloaded (i’m just interested in c#). Setup a a new Application in the Deployment Workbench with these files, using the following for you Quiet install command:

ixpvcs.exe /q:a /c:”msiexec /i vs_setup.msi VSEXTUI=1 ADDLOCAL=ALL REBOOT=ReallySuppress /qn”

3: Dependancies
You’ll need to add in dependancies for Windows Installer 3.1 and the .net 2.0 framework. See this article for information on how to do just that.

Just like to say thanks to Aaron Stebner who provided the basis for this on his blog. All i’ve just is update the patch for vs2008 rather than 2005.