side by side installation of visual studio for windows

Whilst Microsoft offers older versions of Visual Studio for download via my.visualstudio.com, Microsoft do not offer a way to install a specific patch release. Having the latest of a minor is generally not enough, as new revisions/patch releases can break behaviors. Personally, I've lost days to weeks levels of productivity this year with Visual Studio for Windows after upgrading and then being stuck unable to re-install a specific, known working version.

This community maintained repository allows you to download and install a specific productSemanticVersion of Visual Studio.

usage

• Cherry pick a particular version and place in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages\_Instances or as an administrator, after uninstalling all editions of visual studio for windows, clone this repository as C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages\_Instances

cd C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages
git clone https://github.com/ghuntley/visual-studio-for-windows-layouts _Instances

• Optional: Open the state.json file and adjust the installationPath to a different drive or folder.
• Launch the Visual Studio Installer.
• On the layout you wish to install, click retry and then click finish.

contributing

1. Format the state.json with a JSON pretty printer.
2. Adjust "installationPath": to follow the convention "C:\\VisualStudio\\{Edition}\\{catalogInfo.productSemanticVersion}" ie. C:\\VisualStudio\\Enterprise\\15.9.14+28307.770
3. Adjust "properties.nickname:" to be "{catalogInfo.productSemanticVersion}" ie. 15.9.14+28307.770
4. Rename the instance folder to be "{Edition}-{catalogInfo.productSemanticVersion}" ie. professional-15.9.14+28307.770
5. Send in the pull-request

disclaimer

This approach is not officially supported my Microsoft. Any MSI/EXE shared components will still roll forward and older versions cannot be side-by-side installed. See https://twitter.com/mrhestew/status/1137072701867061248