Visual Studio 2019 Offline — Installer
Cause: You are running the layout command on an offline PC.
Fix: You must run the --layout command on a machine with internet, then copy the files to the offline machine.
You are not limited to a one-size-fits-all download. You can tailor the offline installer for your team.
While powerful, the offline installer is not without drawbacks:
Cause: You tried to install directly to a network drive or USB drive as the destination for Visual Studio itself. Fix: Visual Studio cannot run from a network drive. The offline layout must be on a local drive (C:\ or D:). Copy the layout from USB to the local machine, then install. visual studio 2019 offline installer
Beyond workloads, you can add specific SDKs or build tools. For example, to include .NET Framework 4.8 targeting pack:
--add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.8.TargetingPack
To see a full list of components for VS 2019, search for "Visual Studio Component Catalog" online (requires web access).
The syntax for creating an offline layout is:
[bootstrapper] --layout [destination folder] --add [workload IDs] --lang [locale] Cause: You are running the layout command on an offline PC
Here is a practical example that downloads C++ Desktop, .NET Desktop, and Node.js workloads for English:
C:\VS2019_Offline_Setup\vs_community.exe --layout C:\VS2019_Layout --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.Node --lang en-US
Common Workload IDs for VS 2019:
| Workload | Workload ID |
| :--- | :--- |
| .NET desktop development | Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop |
| Desktop development with C++ | Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop |
| ASP.NET and web development | Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb |
| Python development | Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.Python |
| Data storage and processing | Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.Data |
| Node.js development | Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.Node |
Microsoft has streamlined this process significantly. You don't need third-party tools. Everything is handled by the command line. To see a full list of components for
Visual Studio is updated frequently. An offline layout is a snapshot in time. To update the existing layout without re-downloading everything, run the same command against the same directory.
vs_enterprise.exe --layout C:\VS2019Offline
This command scans the existing files, compares them with the latest available on Microsoft servers, and downloads only the updated or missing components. This is critical for maintaining a repository that includes the latest security patches.