How do I install a VSIX file in Visual Studio?

Question

I just downloaded a VSIX file from the Visual Studio Gallery.

How do I install it in Visual Studio?

Answer 1

VSIX is a Visual Studio extension installer. You must have Visual Studio 2010 or newer in order to install them, but you should be able to install it by double-clicking the .vsix file. Alternatively you should be able to install it from within the VS Extension Manager (Tools->Extension Manger)

See more about VSIX files at Quan To's Visual Studio Extensibility blog

Answer 2

The above answers didn't help me; I couldn't install it through the extension manager and there was not default application for .vsix. However, I needed to open it (right click > Open with...) with Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector and it worked.

Small update: For VS 2013, you need the corresponding version of NuGet: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/4ec1526c-4a8c-4a84-b702-b21a8f5293ca. Otherwise, the version selecter will tell you it's already installed on all fitting versions.

Answer 3

How to install Visual Studio Extensions

To summarise, there are three options:

1. Install via Extension Manager (Tools/Options)
2. Install via Visual Studio Gallery.com (download and open directly or save then double-click)
3. Install via "xcopy" into %localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Extensions

Answer 4

If all the above options fail, try installing it from the VS Developer command-line. Here's how (on StackOverflow):

How to install Visual Studio Gallery extensions from command line

VSIXInstaller.exe /quiet some_extension.vsix

You can find VSIXInstaller here (on your local PC - depending on the Visual Studio version replace 14.0 by the version you're using):

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE

To display the installer dialog(s), remove the /quiet option.

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Note:

• To uninstall a VSIX extension, you need to know its vsixID (here^*) is described how to get it), then you can use

VSIXInstaller.exe /uninstall:vsixID

• To install/uninstall VSIX files for a specific Visual Studio version, use the switches /skuName:name and /skuVersion:version; you can see all options of the command line tool if you type VSIXInstaller.exe /? in the developer command prompt.

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^*)Summary from the link: "To get the vsixid of a .vsix file, make a copy of the .vsix file and rename it to .zip. You can then open it and find an extension.vsixmanifest file inside. This is an XML file, and if you open it you will see an <Identity Id="guid"... /> node. The guid is the vsixid"

Answer 5

Did you know that the VSIX is nothing more than a ZIP file. After double clicking on it, the VS selector prompts you for each installed version of Visual Studio to install it too. This is where vs picks an arbitrary folder name and unpacks the content to the %AppData%\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio##\Extensions folder. So Benjol was partially correct save for unpacking the files from the VXIS(again which is a Zip).

Answer 6

VSIXInstaller in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\resources\app\ServiceHub\Services\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Setup.Service

Answer 7

When I double-click on vsix file, I get an error "The requested operation requires elevation". As a result,

• I opened cmd as administrator and navigated to the target folder.
• Type the vsix file name and hit enter.

VSIXInstaller showed up and started to execute the vsix file and I was able to complete the installation of the component. Hope this helps in case someone is having a similar trouble. Cheers

Answer 8

Just recently Visual Studio stopped opening my VSIX files when clicking Download on the Marketplace website. It kept asking me which application to use to open VSIX files. I was able to install them by browsing for the VSIXInstaller.exe file in the Visual Studio IDE folder, mine was here:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\VSIXInstaller.exe"

Answer 9

The only option that you would see if you have at least one Visual studio version installed is to double click the file. I was able to install to both the Visual studio versions that I have using that.

Answer 10

Rename the .vsix file to .zip, extract it to a folder and move it to \AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\"X.X"\Extensions where "X.X" is your VS version.

Answer 11

I think you just reload Visual Studio after downloading the VSIX. During the launch Visual Studio looks for the VSIX file and incorporates all the required changes.