Installing from a local hard drive or USB flash drive is significantly faster than downloading files on the fly. Step 1: Download the Visual Studio Bootstrapper
(Note: Component IDs and workload names can change; use the bootstrapper’s --layout help or the Visual Studio docs for authoritative lists.)
Unless you know you will use every single feature of Visual Studio, you can customize the download to save significant time and disk space. You do this by adding one or more --add parameters to specify which (feature sets) you need.
If the target machine has never been connected to the internet or has restricted access, the Visual Studio installation may fail due to missing code-signing certificates. The offline layout includes these certificates in a subfolder. Installing from a local hard drive or USB
You can find the full list of component IDs on Microsoft's official documentation if you need even more fine-grained control over your installation.
Once the command completes (which may take a significant amount of time depending on connection speed), verify that the target folder contains:
There are two primary methods for creating the offline layout. Method 1 (command-line) is the most flexible and recommended. If the target machine has never been connected
and run a command to download the files to a specific directory. Microsoft Learn To download the entire product (approx. 35GB+): vs_community.exe --layout C:\vslayout --lang en-US Use code with caution. Copied to clipboard
Note: For a comprehensive offline cache that includes all features, omit the --add arguments (warning: this may require 40GB+ of space).
Even with a good plan, you might encounter a few hurdles. Here are some common problems and solutions: Once the command completes (which may take a
Once you select your method, execute the download through the Windows Command Prompt. Open the Windows search bar and type . Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator .
vs_community.exe --layout C:\VS2019Layout --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop --lang en-US Use code with caution.
A minimum of 20 GB to 50 GB of free disk space, depending entirely on the specific workloads you select. A full download encompassing every workload requires over 100 GB.
Disadvantage: This method is messy, duplicates files, and is harder to customize. Method 1 is strongly preferred.