How can I check for Visual Studio updates via the command line?

Question

In an attempt to streamline my Virtual Environment setup, I\'m using Chocolatey to automate my VM.

Since I can run the cinst command to install Visual Studi

Answer 1

There is a way to check but it is not at all straight forward. Visual Studio Updates are published via an ATOM feed that is currently hosted here:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=251032

This URL can be located in:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Platform\Shell\Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.Implementation.pkgdef

Under the [$RootKey$\ExtensionManager\Repositories{52943709-1abb-4abe-b413-41e8bb6d0462}] key.

The above URL should not change for any version of Visual studio BUT that is not a guarantee. If you examine the response of http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=290886, you will currently get this response:

  
  uuid:99B94631-1B1A-45A0-9C34-54F75988DD54;id=1
  2013-02-12T20:00:00-07:00  
  
    8EAF6C8E-1283-4EEE-AB6E-F0F087BFCBFF
    
    
Includes security updates, other critical updates, hotfixes, and feature packs that have been issued since the product was released.
    2012-12-01T21:00:00-07:00
    2012-12-01T21:00:00-07:00
    
      Microsoft Corp.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
      8EAF6C8E-1283-4EEE-AB6E-F0F087BFCBFD
      11.0.60610.01
      
    
  
  
    28743233-1A36-4e67-8747-F072F8C76D1F
    
    
This release updates the development resources for the controls, CSS styles, and helper functions that are included in the Windows Library for JavaScript.
    2013-08-08T20:00:00-07:00
    2013-08-08T20:00:00-07:00
    
      Microsoft Corp.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
      Microsoft.WinJS
      1.0.9200.20789
      
    
  

Note that there are two entries in this feed and the one you are interested in is the one with a title beginning with "Visual Studio 2012 Update."

If the Version specified in this file (11.0.60610.01 here) is greater than the version you have on disk:

(Get-Item "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\common7\ide\devenv.exe").VersionInfo.ProductVersion

Then you would want to download and install the url in the Link/@Update node:

That Url should redirect to an MSI that has the update.