Visual Studio 2015 is completely disconnected from the distribution.

Question

I am wondering if there is a way to download all the external components of VS 2015 (Apache Cordova, Android SDK, Python tools, lots of JS files, etc.) to create a complete and standalone installer? Preferably, I want to find a way to create such a "distribution" automatically (by executing 1-2 commands).

I don’t have internet on my working machine and on Google, downloading and installing all external dependencies manually is tedious, and I'm not sure if VS will see them after installation.

PS: Rant - previous versions of VS, which included all software components in ISO, were better.

PPS: this is a complete copy of the question on serverfault - https://serverfault.com/questions/707871/visual-studio-2015-full-completely-offline-distributive because I thought installation questions were better suited there ... Looks like I was wrong ..

Answer 1

Do you want to use layout switch

• After you download the update executable from the MSDN website to a location on your file system, run the following command at the command prompt: / layout. This command downloads all packages for installation. Using the / layout switch, you can download all the main installation packages, not just the ones that apply to the bootloader. This approach gives you all the files you need to run this update, and can be useful if you want to install components that were not installed initially.

• After running the command, you will be asked to specify the location to download. Enter a location and select "Download."

• When the package download is successful, you should see a Visual Studio screen that says the installer has completed successfully! All of these components have been successfully purchased.

• In the file you specify, locate the executable file and package folder. This is all you need to copy to a shared folder or install media.

• Now you can start the installation from the location of the file or installation media.

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