I’ve had a problem on my most recent Windows 7 install with getting the WCF activation to install. I kept getting errors which told me that an error occurred and some of the features were not installed and then I was prompted to restart now or later… Well, great as that was, I was sort of hoping to find a solution…
Thanks to Stack Overflow and Jörg Battermann, I just found the following post here. The short of the post is that installing VS 2010 replaces a file (SMConfigInstaller) which is required to correctly install WCF activation. Uninstalling VS 2010 will not correct the issue. Instead you need to copy the 3.0 version of the file over the 4.0 version. The only tricks are getting the access to the original version of SMConfigInstaller and having the permission to replace the file.
Regarding the first step; here’s a zip file containing the 64 bit versions of both files. (assuming I don’t get told to stop sharing the files, I figured since they’re freely available, what’s the harm?) The file you need to copy over what’s on your system is under the pre 4.0 folder and needs to be copied to c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework64\windows communication foundation\.
Before you can copy the 3.0 version of the file, you’ll have to give yourself permission to the file on your system. In my case, I had to take ownership of the file, then give myself permission (a process you will want to reverse once this whole things is over and done).
Once you’ve copied the file, open the Programs and Features, click Turn Windows Features on or off, expand the Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5.1 and select both activations (well, you can go with one, but the process is tedious, so I recommend just installing both at once). Everything should install just fine.
Once you’ve done, before removing your access to the file and restoring the previous owner, copy the 4.0 version of that file back in place. Of course, if you’re not me, you probably installed your WCF activation before you installed VS 2010 : p
Tags: wcf, windows 7, vs 2010