Well, my attempt to resolve the issues I was having installing VSTS brought me to gave up after about 3 hours of uninstalling hotfixes and patches. I broke down and re-installed the only version I had previously been able to install without issue (Database Version). As a kicker, once I had it working, I tried to install the standard version "over the top" and it almost worked (failed during the last step). But that will have to do for now, because I need it to develop with, and at least it will compile. Guess I am back to the "notepad" version of Visual Studio document editing, because I have work to do, and even thought the tool is not perfect, it can get the job done.
Next major thing to play with will be VMWare, but I have work to do between now and then.