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Important note: Known setup issue installing F# February releases (MissingMethodException)
f#

Summary: If you are installing either the VS2010 RC or F# February 2010 CTP, please ensure that you first uninstall all prior VS2010 Betas/F# CTPs/F# Redists that may be on your machine. You may see MissingMethodException failures if previous releases were not uninstalled.

Details: We've discovered an issue in the installer, where if a prior install of F# is present, installing the latest F# (either VS2010 or F# CTP) may not result in FSharp.Core.dll being updated. This is a 'silent' failure that manifests later when running F# code (often with code failing at runtime with a MissingMethodException). Furthermore, simply uninstalling or repairing the new-component-just-installed is insufficient to repair the situation; all F# components must be uninstalled to get back to a state where future installs will work:

  • Uninstall VS2010 Beta2 (and/or any other VS2010 pre-releases you may have)
  • Uninstall the F# October CTP (and/or any other F# CTPs)
  • (then install desired February releases)

One way to determine if you machine is 'clean of any F# components' is to use gacutil:

gacutil -l FSharp.Core

e.g. from an administrator VS command prompt, run the command above and see if any FSharp.Core assemblies are in the GAC. If none appear, your machine is clear of F#, and you can go ahead and install VS2010 RC, or the F# CTP, or both.

We're working to ensure that this issue will not occur in the final RTM release.

I'll plan to post more details in the next few days, but the high level point is - ensure all F# is uninstalled before installing any of the just-released bits.

(Thanks much to those users who reported this issue and helped us understand and diagnose the problem. And thanks to those who have sent other general feedback on the recent release to fsbugs - keep it coming!)

.

I found this issue suprisingly difficult to fix, but the following steps seem to work in the end:

- Uninstall any previous versions listed in add/remove programs

- Unistall the current powerpack

- Uninstall the F# current F# runtime

- Choose to modify the Visual Studio 2010 install and deactive the F# feature

- Finally reactivate the F# feature.

- Reinstall the powerpack

After that everything was tickety-boo.

Cheers,

Rob

By on 2/13/2010 7:49 AM ()

I've not installed the 2010RC yet, I'm concerned that I don't have F# fully uninstalled.

The above post looks the best I've seen, but I'm not sure what process to use for the latter "uninstall" steps.

I'd appreciate some detail.

1. I have uninstalled F# from add remove programs.

2. There are some F# assemblies in the GAC. Many are PowerPack but there's also an fsharp.core...

3. I haven't got an entry for Powerpack in add/remove programs.

How do I get these assemblies out of the way. (Is there an uninstaller that I haven't found? Should I use GacUtil? I've seen a reference to "just delete the assembly", which doesn't seem right, should I do that?)

I want to install once, not repeatedly.

(I'm using GacUtil from the command line not from a UI.)

Thanks.

By on 3/30/2010 3:18 PM ()

Have you ever installed any VS2010 betas? Ensure they are uninstalled, including any 'Microsoft Visual F# Runtime'.

Don't worry about the powerpack.

If there are FSharp.Core bits remaining, you might try

- install the latest F# CTP

- uninstall the F# CTP

to see if that gets rid of it. The CTP install/uninstalls are pretty quick (maybe like 4 minutes), and this might clean things up.

If not, then you can use gacutil to remove FSharp.Core (presumably left over from an older CTP/Beta install that was not uninstalled cleanly).

By on 3/30/2010 3:52 PM ()

Hi Brian. No notification came through so I'm late in seeing your post.

No other betas on the machine.

Thanks for that note about the PowerPack.

I read up on how GAC works and went for the right button uninstall option for all the F# assemblies.

I then installed VS 2010 RC. All seemed to go as expected, though it takes a while.

I haven't programmed anything in F# yet but it is present in both VS2010 and VS2010, which is pleasing.

Any issues I'll put a note here.

Thanks for your input.

By on 3/30/2010 6:52 PM ()

Brian,

I'm doubly sorry I didn't get a notification of your post!

Installation seems to work well from inside VS 2010. This is great and I really like the development environment.

From the command line I had problems which on tracking down resolved to an older version of F# still present on the system. Hopefully your advise will get it cleared away permanently in the window after I uninstall the VS 2010 RC before I install in the release product.

I had issues with the uninstaller before and I essentially stopped using F# at that point waiting for this release. (A hard decision having spent a fair amount of time and getting the first books off the rank! But I really don't have patience with uninstalls that don't work.)

The good news is that I'm using F# again. I'm not joking when I say I'm feeling more alive. I use other languages which I genuinely like but a good shot of F# yesterday just made me feel alive again. This is such a great tool. I don't get nearly as much "cognitive dissonance" as I do with more conventional languages.

Now I just need to find out how I can do things like APL/J inside F#. (Those languages, especially J, have a similar effect on me though I haven't used them for some time.)

All F# users with old installs should heed Brian's suggestions.

If anybody has an F# application that checks F# installations in GAC, in files, in registry, in path and any other place I've missed, I'd be delighted to get a copy, read it, learn from it and use it.

By on 3/31/2010 7:57 PM ()

The following solution suggested by Chris Smith worked for me:

1.

Delete FSharp.Core.dll from the GAC
Launch cmd as an admin
del

C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\FSharp.Core\2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\FSharp.Core.dll
2.

Repair the F# February CTPNote that you have to delete the FSharp.Core.dll from GAC manually through the dos prompt. The neither the GAC snap on for Windows nor the GAC admin tool from the .NET Configuration tool will allow you to do that.
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By on 2/17/2010 1:28 PM ()

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