How to upgrade from VS 2017 to 2019? - installation

VS 2019 is RTM, and I was wondering what's the proper way to upgrade from VS 2017, is there a dedicated 'upgrade' method, or is it uninstall and install? Maybe install and uninstall?
What's the right way to do it without having to uninstall and reinstall same stuff for nothing?

We cannot directly upgrade VS 2017 to VS 2019. They are compatible and work side by side though (like the following). Please download and install VS 2019 from https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2019/release-notes

On Visual Studio Installer, You will see two tabs : Installed and Available. On Installed Tab, Visual Studio Community 2017, Click on More Drop-down, Choose Uninstall. Reboot is recommended before you begin with Installing Visual Studio Community 2019 from Available Tab.

Related

Update Visual Studio 2017 to Preview version

Does anyone know if it is possible to update from Visual Studio 2017 to Preview version?
I don't want to install one more visual studio instance or reinstall existing one.
No, it's meant to be separate.
From https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/preview/
Side-by-Side
Preview installs next to your stable Visual Studio IDE, allowing you to use either independently

uninstalling Visual studio 2017 enterprise and installing VS 2017 community

I would like uninstall visual studio 2017 enterprise from my window surface pro. after that i would like to install visual studio 2017 community. just wanted to ask the following,
is it going to be just uninstall the current version of vs from programmes and installing the new version.
is there any potential issue i need to be aware off?
thanks
Please, read the documentation:
Microsoft Docs | Install Visual Studio 2017
Microsoft Docs | Uninstall Visual Studio 2017
is it going to be just uninstall the current version of vs from
programmes and installing the new version.
Yes, uninstall Enterprise Edition and install Community. Or do it vice-verse.
BTW, you should run Visual Studio Installer, not Programs and Features to manage your VS2017 installations.
As far as I know, you do not need to uninstall the VS enterprise 2017 in your scenario. For VS 2017, we can keep different versions on the same computer. Please check this: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/releasenotes/vs2017-relnotes#whats-new-in-visual-studio-2017 and find the following information:
Installation Nickname
Visual Studio Enterprise and Community (among other products) can now be installed side-by-side on the same computer. To make identifying these installations simpler, you can specify a short name or "nickname". For example, if you were to install Visual Studio Enterprise, and then install Community, both would appear the same on the start menu. You can give the second one a nickname like "community", and the start menu items will appear with names such as "Visual Studio 2017 (community)" and "Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio 2017 (community)".

Can you upgrade Visual Studio 2015/2017 from Professional to Enterprise?

If Visual Studio 2015 (and 2017) are installed from MSDN using a Visual Studio Professional ISO, can it later be upgraded to Enterprise using a new license key? ...or does it require a complete uninstall/reinstall of Visual Studio?
You need to install the enterprise version to obtain it, and VS cannot change the version through the type of your license key and the VS version depends on your installation.
For VS 2015, we can only keep one version on the computer. If you already installed the VS professional 2015, as far as I know, you can directly install run the VS enterprise 2015 installer to install it. After the installation is complete and successful, the professional is auto removed or replaced by the higher enterprise version. You can also try to use the forcibly uninstall command like: vs_professional.exe /uninstall /force to uninstall the professional version.
For VS 2017, please check the VS 2017 Release Notes and it describes Visual Studio Enterprise and Community (among other products) can now be installed side-by-side on the same computer. To make identifying these installations simpler, you can specify a short name or "nickname".
Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise installer should tell you whether you need to uninstall Professional.
Visual Studio 2017 no longer has that restriction, and you can install both Professional and Enterprise side by side.
If you have VS Installer you can easily change versions. Although you need to uninstall the version you have, you can use the same Installer you ran for uninstallation (i.e. VSPro) to Download & install new version (i.e. Enterprise).

Should I install Visual Studio 2017 beside Visual Studio 2015 or should I first uninstall Visual Studio 2015 and then install Visual Studio 2017?

I am currently using Visual Studio 2015 for programming ASP.NET Core applications. I have the following questions regarding installing Visual Studio 2017:
What is considered to be best practice and/or cleanest method?
Should I install Visual Studio 2017 beside Visual Studio 2015?
Should I first uninstall Visual Studio 2015 and all .NET Core dependencies and then install Visual Studio 2017?
Are there any tools that would ensure a clean uninstall of Visual Studio 2015?
From page Visual Studio 2017 Platform Targeting and Compatibility
Compatibility with Previous Releases Installation
You can install and use Visual Studio 2017 alongside previous versions of Visual Studio, including Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio 2013, and Visua Studio 2012.
So yes. you can install them without any problem.
VS 2013, VS 2015, and VS 2017 all work well side-by-side. VS 2012 can be a little dodgy on Windows 10, but should also work side-by-side. In theory VS 2010 should also work side-by-side with those, but I've run into quirks in the past with them interfering with one-another.
Projects should round-trip between 2015 and 2017 generally, although there are some one-way upgrade scenarios.
Note that if you really just need the older compiler toolset for some reason, you can also install VS 2017 and select the optional component Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.140 which installs the older v140 compiler which you can still use with the VS 2017 IDE. That said, there's not a lot of reason to do this since the VS 2015 & VS 2017 C++ standard libraries are binary compatible so you can mix them in a project.
See this blog post for information on VS 2017.
It sounds like you have done some projects in 2015 already, so you will probably want to keep it.
Once you open a project in a new version, it will try to upgrade the project and then you can't go back.
However, if you have multiple versions installed at the same time, when you try to open a project, say, from Windows Explorer, it will open it with the "Visual Studio Version Checker" and will look at the project file and determine which version to open it in.
Bottom line, if you have the hard drive space, there is no reason to not install them alongside each other.
In the past, it was recommended to install them in sequential order if you are installing multiple versions, but it doesn't sound like this is an issue for you and I don't know if that is even a problem anymore as it has been several versions since I have had to deal with that.
Good luck!
Personally, I would keep both - there have been multiple times through the years where you have compatibility issues and NEED to have the prior version(s). I've also had old project that will not upgrade and I've gone back and reinstalled old VS versions.
If you have no reason to keep VS2015 in your computer I would suggest uninstalling it.
I uninstalled VS2015 after installing VS2017 and later noticing that I was still using an old taskbar shortcut to VS2015.
So I was inadvertently still using VS2015.
Maybe some special cases require keeping older versions of VS along side the new version, but for the rest of us, I say, uninstall!
VS 2015 is the last version that is supported by Installshield LE.
If you have a need for building installers in the future, it will be useful to have VS 2015
1,2,3. Visual Studio 2017 has more features over 2015 and it contains 2015's current features so you don't need 2015 alongside 2017. Just stick with 2017. And I don't think you will have any problems while opening 2013 and 2015 projects with Visual Studio 2017.
Uninstall Tool is a good tool to use. It cleanses all the leftover files and registry entries after running the original uninstallation wizard and even tells you how many files will be cleaned after the required reboot.
For people continuing to read this, I have Visual Studio Professional 2008 (For Windows Embedded 6.5), 2010, 2015, 2017 and they all work even if open at the same time.
Edit: As stated in other answers, they need to be installed from oldest version to newest.

Update Visual Studio 2017 from Visual Studio 2015.3 and 2017 rc

Good morning,
I have installed in my PC (Windows 10) Visual Studio 2015.3 and Visual Studio 2017 RC, both of them with a lot of things installed on.
Now, that Visual Studio 2017 is finally out, I want to have only and don't have Visual Studio 2017 RC or the "old" Visual Studio 2015.
I search over internet and I find how to have an off-line installation of Visual Studio 2017. Now I don't know which is the best solution between:
Uninstall All plugin like resharper or so on, restart, uninstall Visual Studio 2017 RC, Restart, Uninstall Visual Studio 2015.3, restart, install Visual Studio 2017, install all plugin
Install Visual Studio 2017, update all plugin, uninstall Visual Studio 2017 rc, uninstall Visual Studio 2015.3
Or other...is there someone that have a simil issue?
Thanks
VS 2015:
You don't have to uninstall VS 2015, and if you want to uninstall it, you can do it later, because it is completely independent from VS 2017.
VS 2017 RC:
Additionally to the update, of course it is possible to do a fresh install.
This is what I would do at least for my main development system.
Updates can be more error-prone than new installations (Consider this for example):
Can't update Visual Studio 2017 RC
If you prefer a fresh install I would take your sequence 1 (but let VS 2015, at least until VS 2017 was successful installed).
Edit: Just install the current version of Resharper instead of using old versions. Resharper for VS 2017 was not released the same day as VS 2017 itself, but some weeks later.
First: versions of Visual Studio work side by side, they do not upgrade. If you wish to remove VS2015 then you need to uninstall it.
Second: if you start up your VS2017 RC it will prompt you to update. The updater will upgrade from RC to RTM.

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