How to download full Visual Studio 2017 Community with command line enabled?

I would like to download VS 2017 with command line enabled in installer because I am afraid MS will soon pull the plug out and I will be left with scenario "upgrade computer, buy new smartphone, etc".

So far I managed to download VS 2017 from non-MS site, GUI installer works, etc. The problem is, this is basically one time installation, and I would like to download all the files, makes a backup. And in order to download anything from MS I need new VS 2017 installer (to be able to work from command-line).

So I tried MS page with link to older version. This page requires me to log in into my account (I tried my two accounts), on one, I got nothing ("you have no benefits"), using my other account I got the links, but only two Professional version of VS 2017.

Does anyone has a trick in his/her sleeve how at the age of VS2019 get access to older Community version?

Update: finally I got access to the Dev Essential program and I can see VS 2017 Community download button, but it seems the download itself is redirected in all cases to VS 2019. Those two links should give two different installers, but the effect is exactly the same:

2 Answers

What you are looking for is to make an offline installation.

The Microsoft articleCreate an offline installation of Visual Studiohas the answer.

You have already downloaded the Visual Studio Community Web installervs_community.exe.

Use this command line to create a local cache in the folder c:\vslayout(or choose another folder):

vs_community.exe --layout c:\vslayout --includeOptional --lang en-US

Later on you could use this folder to install on this computer or another, using the same options:

c:\vslayout\vs_community.exe --includeOptional

Note that --includeOptional will result in a huge download. Use instead the --add parameter to help in limiting the size of the download to just the components you need. For that seeVisual Studio workload and component IDs.

Older versions of Visual Studio can be downloaded from:

• Microsoft's ownVisual Studio Older Downloads - 2017, 2015 & Previous Versions
• By joining Microsoft's freeVisual Studio Dev Essentials.

Ok, I managed to download and install it. Here are my steps:

1. install nuget CLI from:

2. using nuget install chocolatey as package, more here:

3. having chocolatey install VS2017 community package:

4. when installing you can pay attention where the files are fetched from. When I am writing this, VS2017 is at:

5. so either you download it directly, or switch to chocolatey cache directory (%TEMP%\chocolatey) and grab vs_community.exe

6. and then run the installer to fetch all the files needed to offline installation