problems-installing-dot-net-core-1-0-0-vs-2015-tools-preview-2

I received the same error message on a fresh Windows 10 install, with a fresh Visual Studio 2015 install. I believe the VS2015 install process automatically downloaded and applied Update 3 during the process.

Chasing the logfile showed that for me, it was comparing the following version numbers and for some reason the ‘Community‘ edition version mismatched.the following version numbers mismatched:

[27B8:1BBC][2016-07-20T16:17:11]i000: Setting string variable ‘VS2015UpdateVersion‘ to value ‘14.0.25420‘
[27B8:1BBC][2016-07-20T16:17:11]i000: Setting string variable ‘VS2015ProfessionalUpdateVersion‘ to value ‘14.0.25420‘
[1A60:0CD4][2016-07-20T16:14:36]i000: Setting string variable ‘VS2015CommunityUpdateVersion‘ to value    ‘14.0.25424‘

Nobody in the history of the internet has ever used version 14.0.25424, so I assumed it must be a typo. After changing the VS Community UpdateVersion string value from 14.0.25424 to 14.0.25420 in the registry, the installer worked fine for me.

The full registry keys to check include:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\14.0\community
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\14.0\community\1033

Both should have the following string value:

"UpdateVersion"="14.0.25420"

Hope this helps.