Set defaults for enterprise deployments of Visual Studio
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac Visual Studio Code
You can set registry policies that affect the deployment and update behavior of Visual Studio. These policies are global on the client machine and affect the following:
- Where some packages shared with other versions or instances are installed.
- Where and whether packages are cached.
- If administrator updates should be enabled and how they should be applied.
- Which update channels are available and how they're presented to the client.
- How notifications appear or don't appear.
You can set these policies by using command-line options on the client machine, by setting registry values directly on the client machine, or by distributing them using Group Policy across an organization.
Registry keys
There are several locations where you can set enterprise defaults to enable their control either through Group Policy or directly in the registry. Visual Studio looks sequentially to see if any enterprise policies have been set; as soon as a policy value is discovered in the order below, the remaining keys are ignored.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SetupHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SetupHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup(on 64-bit operating systems)
Some registry values are set automatically the first time they are used if not set already. This practice ensures that subsequent installs use the same values. These values are stored in the second registry key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup.
You can set the following registry values:
Controlling installation and download behavior
The registry settings in this section control how and where the Visual Studio product is downloaded onto the client machine.
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
CachePath |
REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ |
%ProgramData% \Microsoft \VisualStudio \Packages |
The directory where package manifests and, optionally, payloads are stored. The Visual Studio Installer enforces a 50 character limit for the path. For more information, see Disable or move the package cache page. |
KeepDownloadedPayloads |
REG_DWORD |
1 | Keep package payloads even after they are installed. You can change the value anytime. Disabling the policy removes any cached package payloads for the instance you repair or modify. For more information, see Disable or move the package cache page. |
SharedInstallationPath |
REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ |
%ProgramFiles(x86)% \Microsoft Visual Studio \Shared |
The directory where some packages shared across versions of instances of Visual Studio are installed. You can change the value anytime, but it will only affect future installs. Any products already installed to the old location must not be moved or they might not function correctly. The Visual Studio Installer enforces a 150 character limit for the path. |
BackgroundDownloadDisabled |
REG_DWORD |
0 | Prevent setup from downloading updates automatically for all installed Visual Studio products. You can change the value anytime. |
Important
If you change the CachePath registry policy after any installations, you must move the existing package cache to the new location and make sure it's secured so that SYSTEM and Administrators have Full Control and that Everyone has Read access.
Failure to move the existing cache or securing it might cause problems with future installs.
Controlling Administrator Updates
The registry settings in this section control if and how administrator updates are applied to the client machine.
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
AdministratorUpdatesEnabled |
REG_DWORD |
0 | Allows administrator updates to be applied to the client computer. If this value is missing or is set to 0, administrator updates will be blocked. This value is for administrative use. For more information, see Enabling Administrator Updates. |
AdministratorUpdatesOptOut |
REG_DWORD |
0 | Indicates that the user does not want to receive administrator updates to Visual Studio. The absence of the registry value, or a set value of 0, means that the Visual Studio user wants to receive administrator updates to Visual Studio. This is for developer user (if they have admin permissions on the client machine). For more information, see Applying administrator updates. |
UpdateConfigurationFile |
REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ |
%ProgramData% \Microsoft \VisualStudio \updates.config |
The file path for configuring Administrative Updates. For more information, see Methods for configuring an administrator update. |
BaselineStickinessVersions2019 |
REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ |
16.7.0 |
The servicing baseline minor version that the client should remain on. For more information, see Applying administrator updates page. |
The registry settings in this section control if and how administrator updates are applied to the client machine.
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
AdministratorUpdatesEnabled |
REG_DWORD |
0 | Allows administrator updates to be applied to the client computer. If this value is missing or is set to 0, administrator updates will be blocked. This value is for administrative use. For more information, see Enabling Administrator Updates. |
AdministratorUpdatesOptOut |
REG_DWORD |
0 | Indicates that the user does not want to receive administrator updates to Visual Studio. The absence of the registry value, or a set value of 0, means that the Visual Studio user wants to receive administrator updates to Visual Studio. This is for developer user (if they have admin permissions on the client machine). For more information, see Applying administrator updates. |
UpdateConfigurationFile |
REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ |
%ProgramData% \Microsoft \VisualStudio \updates.config |
The file path for configuring Administrative Updates. For more information, see Methods for configuring an administrator update. |
Configuring source location for updates
The settings in this section allow an administrator to customize and control what update channels are available and how they appear to clients in an enterprise organization. For information about what the update settings even are and how they work, refer to the configure source location of updates documentation. This functionality requires the client to be using the Visual Studio 2022 Installer and the layout to be using a version of the 2019 bootstrapper that shipped on or after November 10, 2021. Guidance for how to enable this is available at the how to get the Visual Studio 2022 installer on your client machines via a Visual Studio 2019 layout documentation.
The keys in this section only apply to the Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup registry path
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
Channels |
Key |
Subkey path for storing custom layout channel information. The name of this key is considered the Channel name, and is what shows up in the Update channel dropdown. The ChannelURI value is required to be present under the Channels subkey. |
DisabledChannels |
Key |
Subkey path for suppressing channels and preventing them from showing up in the Update Channel dialog. If the channel is defined here (along with the ChannelURI value), it will be filtered out of the dialog. |
ChannelURI |
REG_SZ |
The channelURI to either add to list of update channel values by adding to the Channels hive, or suppress from the list of update channels by adding to the DisabledChannels registry hive. For Microsoft hosted channels, the channelURI is "https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/channel" or "https://aka.ms/vs/16/pre/channel". For layouts, this value needs to point to the layout's ChannelManifest.json. Refer to examples below. |
Description |
REG_SZ |
A two-line custom description of the channel. If you've already installed from a layout, then the Update Settings UI defaults to "Private Channel" and you can change it using this Description. |
Below are two example registry files that illustrates how an IT Admin may want to customize the Update Settings UI.
The first registry example can be used in a situation where the client has previously installed from a network layout located at \\vslayoutserver3\vs\2019_Enterprise. As mentioned previously, Visual Studio defaults the channel name for this layout to "Private Channel". Here's how you would customize the channel name and description for this layout.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Channels]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Channels\More meaningful name of my existing layout]
"channelUri"="\\\\vslayoutserver3\\vs\\2019_Enterprise\\ChannelManifest.json"
"Description"="Dev Tools based on VS 2019 16.9.Spring.2020 servicing baseline"
Here's how to add a few more layout entries for other custom update channels that are available as a source for updates, and also how to suppress the Preview channel from showing up.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Channels]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Channels\Spring 2021 dev toolset]
"channelUri"="\\\\new2019layoutserver\\share\\new2019layout\\ChannelManifest.json"
"Description"="Dev Tools based on VS 2019 16.11.Spring.2021 servicing baseline"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Channels\Next gen dev tools using VS 2022 toolset]
"channelUri"="\\\\vs2022Layoutserver\\share\\2022Enterprise\\ChannelManifest.json"
"Description"="Developer Tools based on the VS 2022 17.0.Winter.2021 LSTC servicing baseline"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\DisabledChannels\Preview]
"channelUri"="https://aka.ms/vs/16/pre/channel"
Controlling notifications in the Visual Studio IDE
As described earlier, Visual Studio checks the location from which it has been installed, such as a network share or the internet, to see whether any updates are available. When an update is available, Visual Studio notifies the user with a notification icon in the lower right-hand corner of the window.
You can disable the notifications if you don't want end users to be notified of updates. (For example, you might want to disable notifications if you deliver updates through a central software distribution mechanism.)
Because Visual Studio 2019 stores registry entries in a private registry, you can't directly edit the registry in the typical way. However, Visual Studio includes a vsregedit.exe utility that you can use to change Visual Studio settings. You can turn off notifications with the following command:
vsregedit.exe set "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override dword 0
You can turn notifications back on with the following command:
vsregedit.exe set "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override dword 1
To get back to default behavior, you can also delete the value with the following command:
vsregedit.exe remove "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override
After you run the command to change Visual Studio settings, start Visual Studio. Any already-running instances of Visual Studio won't change behavior until Visual Studio is shut down and restarted. As another option, you can restart the computer to make sure the setting takes effect.
You can confirm the setting with the following command:
vsregedit.exe read "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override dword
If the value doesn’t exist (this is the condition by default), the previous command will indicate it failed to read the value. If you set the value, then the previous command will reflect the value in the Visual Studio configuration (it will indicate either 0 or 1, or whatever value it is set to – only 0 or 1 are expected).
Because Visual Studio 2022 stores registry entries in a private registry, you can't directly edit the registry in the typical way. However, Visual Studio includes a vsregedit.exe utility that you can use to change Visual Studio settings. You can turn off notifications with the following command:
vsregedit.exe set "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override dword 0
You can turn notifications back on with the following command:
vsregedit.exe set "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override dword 1
To get back to default behavior, you can also delete the value with the following command:
vsregedit.exe remove "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override
After you run the command to change Visual Studio settings, start Visual Studio. Any already-running instances of Visual Studio won't change behavior until Visual Studio is shut down and restarted. As another option, you can restart the computer to make sure the setting takes effect.
You can confirm the setting with the following command:
vsregedit.exe read "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise" HKCU ExtensionManager AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates2Override dword
If the value doesn’t exist (this is the condition by default), the previous command will indicate it failed to read the value. If you set the value, then the previous command will reflect the value in the Visual Studio configuration (it will indicate either 0 or 1, or whatever value it is set to – only 0 or 1 are expected).
(Make sure to replace the directory to match the installed instance that you want to edit.)
Tip
Use vswhere.exe to find a specific instance of Visual Studio on a client workstation.
Support or troubleshooting
Sometimes, things can go wrong. If your Visual Studio installation fails, see Troubleshoot Visual Studio installation and upgrade issues for step-by-step guidance.
Here are a few more support options:
- We also offer an installation chat (English only) support option for installation-related issues.
- Report product issues to us via the Report a Problem tool that appears both in the Visual Studio Installer and in the Visual Studio IDE. If you're an IT Administrator and don't have Visual Studio installed, you can submit IT Admin feedback here.
- Suggest a feature, track product issues, and find answers in the Visual Studio Developer Community.
See also
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