Programmatically finding the VS2017 installation directory

Question

With previous versions of VS you could query the registry to determine the installation directory for VS:

HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\Microsoft\\Visu

Answer 1

Well, vswhere.exe doesn't really supply more than the Visual Studio edition installation path. Here's my .profile file Interix snippet from 2008 doing the same with a minor update (shell script):

if [[ -n $PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432 || $PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE != "x86" ]]; then
  hkeybase='HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\'
else
  hkeybase='HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\'
fi
for vsver in "15.0" "14.0" "12.0" "11.0" "10.0" "9.0" "8.0"; do
  _vsinstalldir=$(reg.exe query ${hkeybase}'VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' -v $vsver 2>/dev/null \
   | sed -n 's|.*REG_SZ *\([ [:print:]]*\).*|\1|p' | sed 's|\\|/|g')
if [[ -n $_vsinstalldir ]]; then break; fi
done; unset vsver

That's enumerating Visual Studio installations favouring the latest in registry key

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7

Still working for Visual Studio 2017. Would be easy to translate to cmd syntax. To query the registry is simpler and doesn't require vswhere.exe in your path, thus favourable IMO.

Now finding the current Visual C++ instance and the SDKs is another task entirely. :D

Common output in case you wonder:

C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2017/Enterprise/

Answer 2

I had a devil of time trying to modify Srekel's answer to search for only VS2017. Note: If you put the "for" statement below inside an "if" block it will wreck the escape characters and won't work.

SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion

if not exist "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe" (
  echo "WARNING: You need VS 2017 version 15.2 or later (for vswhere.exe)"
)

set vswherestr=^"!ProgramFiles(x86)!\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe^" -version [15.0,16.0^^) -products * -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -property installationPath
for /f "usebackq tokens=*" %%i in (`!vswherestr!`) do (  
  set BUILDVCTOOLS=%%i\Common7\Tools
  echo BUILDVCTOOLS: !BUILDVCTOOLS!
  if not exist !BUILDVCTOOLS!\VsDevCmd.bat (
    echo Error: Cannot find VS2017 Build Tools
    goto :buildfailed
  )
  call "!BUILDVCTOOLS!\VsDevCmd.bat"
)    

Answer 3

I use powershell like KindDragon suggested

$Is64bitOs = $env:PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432 -eq 'AMD64';
if ($Is64bitOs){
    $registryPath = "Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0";
}
else {
    $registryPath = "Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0";
}

$VSInstallDir = (Get-ItemProperty -Path Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0 -Name ShellFolder).ShellFolder;

Answer 4

You can use this PowerShell snippet for finding the VS2017 installation directory:

$vssetup_path = "$([Environment]::GetFolderPath("MyDocuments"))\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\VSSetup"
if (-not (Test-Path $vssetup_path -pathType container))
{
    iwr https://github.com/Microsoft/vssetup.powershell/releases/download/1.0.36-rc/VSSetup.zip -OutFile "$env:TEMP\VSSetup.zip"
    Expand-Archive "$env:TEMP\VSSetup.zip" $vssetup_path
}
$vs2017 = Get-VSSetupInstance -All | Select-VSSetupInstance -Require 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop' -Version '[15.0,16.0)' -Latest
"Installation Path: " + $vs2017.InstallationPath
#`vsdevcmd.bat -arch=x86` or `vsdevcmd.bat -arch=amd64` can be used to setup path's to VC++ compiler
"VsDevCmd.bat Path: " + $vs2017.InstallationPath + "\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat"