Development Archives

Configure Visual Studio across your organization with .vsconfig

April 3, 2019 Apr 3, 2019 04/3/19

Heath Stewart

Add a .vsconfig file to your solution root directory to configure Visual Studio consistently across your organization.

Fast acquisition of vswhere

March 5, 2017 Mar 5, 2017 03/5/17

Heath Stewart

I introduced vswhere last week as an easy means to locate Visual Studio 2017 and newer, along with other products installed with our new installer that provides faster downloads and installs - even for full installs (which has roughly doubled in size with lots of new third-party content). vswhere was designed to be a fast, small, single-file ...

vswhere Available

February 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017 02/25/17

Heath Stewart

After feedback on the VSSetup PowerShell module to query Visual Studio 2017 and related products, I'm pleased to say that a native, single-file executable is available on GitHub: vswhere. The VSSetup PowerShell module is also available on GitHub and provides a number of benefits for PowerShell scripts, but build tools and CMake and deployment ...

Visual Studio Setup PowerShell Module Available

January 25, 2017 Jan 25, 2017 01/25/17

Heath Stewart

To make the new setup configuration APIs more accessible to developers, we have published the "VSSetup" PowerShell module on powershellgallery.com, making it quick and easy to install. If you have Windows Management Framework (WMF) 5.0 or newer - installed with Windows 10 - or PowerShellGet for PowerShell 3.0 or 4.0, you can run the following...

Documentation available for the Setup Configuration API

January 25, 2017 Jan 25, 2017 01/25/17

Heath Stewart

Visual Studio 2017 has brought big changes to extensibility that allow developers to install extensions to different instances and install dependencies. In support of multiple instances, a fast API was required that tools can use to find and launch Visual Studio and related tools, or to install extensions. I previously published some samples...

Changes to Visual Studio “15” Setup

September 15, 2016 Sep 15, 2016 09/15/16

Heath Stewart

We've listened to feedback over the years, and while each new release brought changes to the setup experience of Visual Studio and related products, none have been more significant than what we're doing for Visual Studio "15". New setup engine With Visual Studio supporting so many platforms and toolkits, one of the goals for Visual Studio "15...

Insert GUIDs directly into Visual Studio Code

January 30, 2016 Jan 30, 2016 01/30/16

Heath Stewart

Let me preface this by stating I love Visual Studio Code! While I think its big, older brother Visual Studio is great for large solutions or even small projects where project files are managed automatically by the IDE, Code work great for small, loose projects and is very fast. I still use Vim for a lot of quick edits in a console (I spend a ...

How to register your program for file extensions shared with other programs

August 21, 2014 Aug 21, 2014 08/21/14

Heath Stewart

One frequently asked question is, “how do we register our program for a file extension when other versions (or programs) that handle it might also be installed?” The overarching question is really about how to have non-shared resources both write to a shared resource. But in the case with the Windows registry and file ...

Windows Installer PowerShell Module 2.2.1 Released

July 3, 2013 Jul 3, 2013 07/3/13

Heath Stewart

Yesterday I released servicing update 2.2.1, which updates 2.2.0 to fix a few bugs and add a few cool new features: Version-specific documentation has been added, but the most significant change to the documentation is the complete overhaul of the examples. Apart from removing some old examples using deprecated functionality, I ...

Windows Installer PowerShell Module 2.2.0 Released

June 13, 2013 Jun 13, 2013 06/13/13

Heath Stewart

Years ago I released PowerShell cmdlets (“command-lets”) that make querying product and patch information easy and robust. Windows PowerShell is a powerful shell that pipes objects – not simply text – and provides full access to the .NET Framework as part of the language (though higher-level constructs are most often better). Earlier ...

Visual Studio Setup