vswhere

Python vswhere

This module provides an interface to Microsoft's Visual Studio locator tool, vswhere.

If Visual Studio 15.2 or later has been installed, this will use the vswhere binary installed with Visual Studio. Otherwise, it will download the latest release of vswhere the first time a function is called.

Usage

find() and find_first() are the most generic functions. They support most of the command line options to vswhere. find() returns a list of installed copies of Visual Studio matching the given options, and find_first() returns only the first result.

If you are only interested in the latest version of Visual Studio, use get_latest(). To get just the installation path, use get_latest_path(). To get just the version number, use get_latest_version() or get_latest_major_version(). These functions also support the same arguments as find(), so you can find pre-releases or different products such as build tools.

If you want to use your own version of vswhere.exe instead of the one installed with Visual Studio, use set_vswhere_path() to provide its location.

If you want to use a mirror instead of GitHub to download vswhere.exe, for example when on an intranet that does not have access to GitHub, use set_download_mirror() and provide the URL of the mirror.

Examples

>>> import pprint, vswhere
>>> vswhere.get_latest_path()
'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community'
>>> vswhere.get_latest_path(products='Microsoft.VisualStudio.Product.BuildTools')
'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\BuildTools'
>>> vswhere.get_latest_version()
'16.5.30011.22'
>>> vswhere.get_latest_major_version()
16
>>> vswhere.find(legacy=True, prop='installationPath')
['C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community', 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\\']
>>> pp = pprint.PrettyPrinter(indent=4, width=200)
>>> pp.pprint(vswhere.find(legacy=True))
[   {   'catalog': {   'buildBranch': 'd16.5',
                       'buildVersion': '16.5.30011.22',
                       'id': 'VisualStudio/16.5.4+30011.22',
                       'localBuild': 'build-lab',
                       'manifestName': 'VisualStudio',
                       'manifestType': 'installer',
                       'productDisplayVersion': '16.5.4',
                       'productLine': 'Dev16',
                       'productLineVersion': '2019',
                       'productMilestone': 'RTW',
                       'productMilestoneIsPreRelease': 'False',
                       'productName': 'Visual Studio',
                       'productPatchVersion': '4',
                       'productPreReleaseMilestoneSuffix': '1.0',
                       'productSemanticVersion': '16.5.4+30011.22',
                       'requiredEngineVersion': '2.5.2141.57745'},
        'channelId': 'VisualStudio.16.Release',
        'channelUri': 'https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/channel',
        'description': 'Powerful IDE, free for students, open-source contributors, and individuals',
        'displayName': 'Visual Studio Community 2019',
        'enginePath': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Installer\\resources\\app\\ServiceHub\\Services\\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Setup.Service',
        'installDate': '2019-06-24T05:30:57Z',
        'installationName': 'VisualStudio/16.5.4+30011.22',
        'installationPath': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community',
        'installationVersion': '16.5.30011.22',
        'instanceId': '0a09d80d',
        'isComplete': True,
        'isLaunchable': True,
        'isPrerelease': False,
        'isRebootRequired': False,
        'productId': 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Product.Community',
        'productPath': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community\\Common7\\IDE\\devenv.exe',
        'properties': {   'campaignId': '1263684068.1543796472',
                          'channelManifestId': 'VisualStudio.16.Release/16.5.4+30011.22',
                          'nickname': '',
                          'setupEngineFilePath': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Installer\\vs_installershell.exe'},
        'releaseNotes': 'https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=660893#16.5.4',
        'state': 4294967295,
        'thirdPartyNotices': 'https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=660909',
        'updateDate': '2020-05-10T17:04:46.9919584Z'},
    {'installationPath': 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\\', 'installationVersion': '14.0', 'instanceId': 'VisualStudio.14.0'}]