I create the offline layout in a subfolder of my current directory called “offline.” Naming does not matter in this case. This is optional but considering you’ll be re-using this command every time you want to update your offline layout, this is a good idea. What I did, as you’ll see from the command below, is getting the workloads I need, including all recommended and optional components and then added a few extra components.

I am not going to take up space in this post listing the components I install. You will find the complete list of workloads and component IDs at. That’s still a hefty download but it saves a little space at least. I only download those that I will actually install.

Determine which workloads and recommended or optional components you want to install.

Remove the _lotsofnumbers part from the file name before you continue. Depending on your download source, you might end up with vs_ edition_ lotsofnumbers.exe. I will be using Enterprise, so the file I will be working with is vs_enterprise.exe.

Download the setup bootstrapper for your edition.

Others, such as the terse XML from the AdminDeployment.xml file, are history.ĭocumentation on performing such custom installs is spread across a number of different docs, so here is my attempt at creating a step-by-step unified process for creating your offline layout and a command-line for actually deploying it. Some concepts, such as creating a layout folder, are still around. This new installer also changes how silent and offline installations are created and performed. The installer UI looks like this: The Visual Studio 2017 Installer UI showing available workloads. Installations are customized by selecting one or more workloads with recommended and optional components. Rather than installing a (large) number of discrete components, components are now grouped into “workloads.” These workloads include Azure, Managed Desktop, ASP.NET development, etc. Visual Studio 2017 uses a different installation concept than previous versions.

This post is about Visual Studio 2017 and its new installer technology. There are some interesting changes that need to be made this go-around, including a solution for Installing Office 2016 (VL, MSI) together with Visio and/or Project 2016 (click-to-run, C2R): Deadlocked, but I will write about that later. It’s time to start preparing a new thick image for the computer labs.

Download visual studio 2017 enterprise