Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise Offline Installation

Question

I have created a Visual Studio 2017 offline installer using the command: mu_visual_studio_enterprise_2017_x86_x64_10049783.exe --layout c:\vs2017offline

Behind firewall, when I execute mu_visual_studio_enterprise_2017_x86_x64_10049783.exe, in the vs2017offline folder, I'm getting the following error:

Details WebClient download failed: The remote server returned an error: (407) Proxy Authentication Required. Bits download failed: Error context: BG_ERROR_CONTEXT_REMOTE_FILE, Error code: -2145844841 WinInet download failed: Url 'https://download.microsoft.com/download/0/1/2/012ECA6A-588A-4E9A-9759-62DB964C511A/VSInitializer.exe' returned HTTP status code: 407

Seems the installer still attempts making a connection to the internet.

Help.

Answer 1

For me it was the issue with validating the certificates the packages has been signed with. Since validation was failing, it was trying to connect to the internet to get the packages again. I imported all the certificates in the /layoutRoot/certificates folder and retried the installation and it worked.

Answer 2

After the offline has been successfully downloaded, these simple steps help me keep out of the setup troubles, hope this also help someone else :

1. Ensure you're connected to the internet.

2. Validating the certificates.

3. Make sure you have enough space for the installation. If you receive messages like "file not found" retry to resume the offline by retyping the same command in the same folder.

4. run the installer

Answer 3

I work on a completely air-gapped network and managed to install from the off-line installer without seeing any problems. However today my colleague using the same installer saw the error saying their was no Internet connection. After some investigation and comparison with my machine I managed to get it installed on his machine.

Firstly I had created a Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise offline installer using the following command:

    mu_visual_studio_enterprise_2017_x86_x64_10049783.exe --layout c:\vs2017offline  --lang en-US

Performing the following steps got it installed for my colleague.

Go into the 'certificates' directory in the installer directory, right click on each of the three files and select 'Install PFX'. I am not sure if this actually helps for the later step.

Start a Command Prompt running as Administrator. This should start you in the Windows system directory, e.g. c:\windows\system32.

Type the command

cd c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc

Type the command

notepad hosts

Add the following lines to the end of the file

127.0.0.1   ctldl.windowsupdate.com
127.0.0.1   ocsp.verisign.com
127.0.0.1   crl.verisign.com
127.0.0.1   csc3-2009-2-crl.verisign.com
127.0.0.1   github.com
127.0.0.1   nuget.org
127.0.0.1   download.codeplex.com
127.0.0.1   tools.google.com
127.0.0.1   www.startssl.com
127.0.0.1   ctldl.windowsupdate.com
127.0.0.1   crl.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1   crl.thawte.com
127.0.0.1   referencesource.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1   msdl.microsoft.com

Save the file.

Now run

mu_visual_studio_enterprise_2017_x86_x64_10049783.exe

It should churn away for a little while before eventually display the screen for selecting the VC workloads.

Answer 4

It really works. But....

1. The downloading process for the packages is not always error-free, sometimes it is aborting.

What you have tried, is downloading ALL, I would not recommend that...

2. It's really big. Take this:

The following command downloads the whole VS 2017 for only English language, and there was exactly 20,6 GB shown in explorer (1901 files).

I don't know how big the whole data for all languages With downloading only a part of this And I am not sure, if I got all, with another try I got less...

So at least add the language parameter: "--lang en-US" or two languages...

3. In internet connection is used always for initialization (there should be parameters to avoid that, but there is are not exactly known which should work until now...)

4. No.3 seems is bad, admitted. But there is a good point to say about the installer too: It is enough to download only a part of files offline, and the installer is smart enough to download all these files from internet, which don't exist (offline) on your disk.

So, you can start with:

vs_enterprise__873301792.1489161815.exe --layout %CD%\vs2017offline --lang en-US --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop

This downloads only 1 GB. It should be possible to extend that line with:

--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.Data
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.Node
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.Universal
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetCoreTools

If there is an error, download them step-by-step.

Then you have all main .NET parts. (Cordova, Azure, MS Office adapter, game programming, Unity not mentioned here). For more details, look here: Visual Studio 2017 workload and component IDs.

For C++ standard install add:

--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop (for C++)

More possible options/packages:

--add Component.GitHub.VisualStudio
--add Microsoft.Component.Blend.SDK.WPF
--add Microsoft.Component.HelpViewer
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TestTools.Core
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TestTools.MicrosoftTestManager
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TestTools.WebLoadTest
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TypeScript.2.0
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TestTools.CodedUITest

All together, it's less than 3 GB... Maybe you prefer this to the 20++ GB monster. Make an .iso out of that (I have used AnyBurn), and: ready. You can install on a PC with mobile connection without big costs, only be sure to select the correct language (here English) for the VS installer, if your Windows was started in another language. Because of that, the VS installer downloaded again 1 GB, but it was my fault...

Answer 5

The short answer:

Don't use --layout switch for offline setup, use it ONLY for downloading a new workload.

The long answer.

Answer 6

I was getting a prompt for internet connection, however after I did install all 3 certificates, installation was a success!, Maybe you guys need to confirm the download wasn't broken, or maybe install

aio-runtime 2.4.1

mainifestCounterSignCerficates.p12

mainifestSignCertificates.p12

vs_installer_opc.SignCertificates.p12