Visual Studio 2019 offline installer

Ian Lackie 1 Reputation point
2021-09-23T10:36:30.93+00:00

I need to install VS2019 on a remote server with no access to the internet.

I'm trying to create the offline installer file from my own machine but because I already have VS2019 installed, it just tries to update my local version. Is there something I'm not doing?

I've downloaded the vs_professional.exe installer file, then run the following in CMD: 

vs_professional.exe --noweb --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb --add Component.GitHub.VisualStudio --includeRecommended

It just brings up the window for updating my local version though.

Visual Studio
Visual Studio
A family of Microsoft suites of integrated development tools for building applications for Windows, the web and mobile devices.
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Visual Studio Setup
Visual Studio Setup
Visual Studio: A family of Microsoft suites of integrated development tools for building applications for Windows, the web and mobile devices.Setup: The procedures involved in preparing a software program or application to operate within a computer or mobile device.
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  1. PengGe-MSFT 3,331 Reputation points
    2021-09-24T06:42:11.63+00:00

    Hi, @Ian Lackie

    Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

    If you want to create an offline installation of Visual Studio on a computer with a network, you should use the

    --layout

    parameter, for example: 

    vs_enterprise.exe --layout c:\vslayout --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb --add Component.GitHub.VisualStudio --includeOptional --lang en-US

    For Layout command and command-line parameters, you can refer to this document.

    After this, you need to copy the offline layout file to your server, you can Copy the layout to a network share.
    Then you need to install Visual Studio from the cache in your server, you can refer to step 3.

    Update:
    You can try to use --verify and --fix to Verify and fix a layout on your own machine. Then copy it to the server for installation.

    Sincerely,
    Peng
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  2. Ian Lackie 1 Reputation point
    2021-09-28T09:45:31.107+00:00

    Hi, I have made some progress in that the files all download to the folder and I can copy them up to the server, so thank you for your comment, that helped me get to the next step. It still seems to be trying to download files though when I install to the server, so it falls over as there is no internet connection - this happens even using --noWeb in the server command and having added the certificates. I'm trying again now with a fresh install.

    It's not an easy process though, I must be on my 7th attempt at installing - I wish we could go back to the days of an ISO for a basic install

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  3. Ian Lackie 1 Reputation point
    2021-09-28T14:39:41.33+00:00

    So, I'm stuck again, that setup failed again there. Do you know what could be going on here?

    In CMD, I ran this command to create the layout: 

    vs_professional.exe --layout c:\vslayout --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb --add Component.GitHub.VisualStudio --includeOptional

    and when I ran the CMD on the server after copying the files over, I ran this command: 

    c:\vslayout\vs_professional.exe --noweb --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb --add Component.GitHub.VisualStudio --includeOptional

    After I tried to run, it showed a huge list of packages that were missing from the layout cache135917-vs-missing.png

    I thought by setting the layout download command the same as the install command that there should be no missing packages.