If you ever tried to install Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 or a standalone Visual Studio product on Windows 2000 or XP, you already know that setup fails. But luckily there is a workaround. At the command prompt, type the following command:

E:\SETUP\acmsetup.exe /T E:\SETUP\PRODUCT.STF /s E:\ /n "NAME" /o "ORGANIZATION" /k 1234567890

where:

• E: – your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive letter. Also you can replace E:\ with path to the folder where you have your installation files.
• PRODUCT – File name of the product you are installing with .stf extension. The specific .stf file that is required for the manual command line will vary depending on the specific product you are installing. Search the \SETUP folder on the CD-ROM of the product you are installing for the .stf to use. For example, for Visual Basic 6.0 Professional, use vb98pro.stf; for Visual C++ 6.0 Professional, use vc98pro.stf.
• NAME – your name
• ORGANIZATION – your organization
• 1234567890 – your CD key

If you get the message “You must first run the Installation Wizard before running this setup”, run the following command and repeat.

regedit /s E:\key.dat

In the same way you should install service packs.

Service Pack 5:

C:\SP5\acmsetup.exe /T C:\SP5\sp598ent.stf /s C:\SP5 /n "NAME" /o "ORGANIZATION"

Service Pack 6:

C:\SP6\acmsetup.exe /T C:\SP6\sp698ent.stf /s C:\SP6 /n "NAME" /o "ORGANIZATION"

where:

• C:\SP5 and C:\SP6 – folders where you have extracted service pack files.

Microsoft published an article regarding this problem at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/250343. However they suggest to use /B1 (or /B 1) command line argument, which in my case resulted in product options dialog being skipped.