This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(64, 41%, 16%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EEZ%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Visual Studio 2022 Setup doesn't allow me to download and install Visual Studio at all.
Visual Studio 2022 Setup says that I need at least 27.31 GB free space in my System Drive C even after I configured Visual Studio 2022 Setup to download and install everything on my D drive in the "Installation locations" tab including Visual Studio IDE, Download cache and Shared components, tools, and SDKs.
And I don't know why Visual Studio 2022 Setup insists to download and install a lot of GBs in my System Drive C even after I configured Visual Studio Setup to download and install everything on my D drive.
I don't have much space in my System Drive C and the free space available there is insufficient to download and install Visual Studio 2022 even if Visual Studio 2022 Setup is configured to download and install everything on my D drive.
As a result Visual Studio 2022 Setup doesn't allow me to download and install Visual Studio at all.
Is there a way to force Visual Studio 2022 Setup to download and install everything on my D drive? And also check how much free space available in my D drive and not my C drive before download and installation?
I have free space of hundreds of GBs in my D drive and I want Visual Studio 2022 Setup to download and install everything there.
I thought about the idea to run Visual Studio 2022 Setup inside a virtual machine like Microsoft Hypervisor, Oracle VirtualBox or VMware but I afraid that Visual Studio IDE will run too slowly there.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(140.8, 78%, 23%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3ETS%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Hi @E Z ,
@RLWA32 is right. You cannot force VS 2022 Setup to download and install everything on your D drive. But VS allows you to install the majority of features to another drive, and Visual Studio has been improved to support change the directory of shared components, tools, and SDKs at the first time that you install VS on one machine. The parts installed in system drive are also related to the workloads and components that you select to install from VS Installer.
BTW, VS Installer is installed on the system drive.
Hi @E Z,
I have submitted a suggestion ticket on our Developer Community. Here's the link: Install everything of VS on another drive. Please kindly vote and follow up that thread.
Feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
Tianyu
I thank you.
The visual studio installer will not install the entire product to an alternate drive by design. If you would like to test the performance of VS2022 in a virtual machine Microsoft makes developer VMs available for downloading at https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/
And what will I do if I will find Visual Studio IDE too slow running inside a virtual machine then? Also I am looking for a permanent solution. It says that it is going to expire on 5 March 2023 that is not too long from today at all.
Well, you could free up disk space on your existing C drive or replace it with a larger drive.
Is this possible to replace it by a larger drive? How? And are you sure that this is the only option? There isn't any way to force Visual Studio Setup to download and install everything on D drive?
Microsoft's installation guidance is here - Select the installation locations in Visual Studio
It contains the following - "There are some tools and SDKs that have different rules on where they can be installed. Such tools and SDKs are installed on your system drive even if you choose another location."
If there was a supported method of completely installing VS2022 to a drive other than the system drive don't you think Microsoft would publish it?
Replacing your existing C drive with a larger drive without reinstalling Windows & applications would require you to address hardware compatibility, drive imaging, restoration and other technical matters that are beyond the scope of this forum.
So you are saying that this is not possible to make Visual Studio fully portable.
I can try to Google or find a link to a webpage that explains how to do the C drive replacement.
Of course that I don't expect you to tell me about this topic or subject in details here.
But I would like to know what directories in System Drive C Visual Studio Setup always write to no matter what selections I make in the "Installation locations" tab?
The reason that I want to know this is because I want to make all these directories junction with the cmd mklink /J or \J option command to force Visual Studio 2022 setup to download and install everything on my D drive though I afraid that Visual Studio 2022 Setup will still check the free space available in my System Drive C before download and installation and won't let me download and install at all if I have insufficient free space there.
I don't work for Microsoft and have no knowledge of the inner workings of the visual studio installer. Consequently, I cannot say whether your workaround idea is feasible or not.
I afraid that nobody knows unless the Visual Studio Setup has been fully reverse engineered.
I afraid that I will have to go with the both complicated and risky solution to replace my System Drive C with a bigger one without losing everything there just in order to download and install that Visual Studio through it's annoying setup eventually.
Are you really sure that there is no any generic software that can force any setup to download and install everything on a specific directory or folder that I choose and only check or test the drive that contains that directory or folder?
I will leave it to you to conduct your own internet search in the hope of finding a solution that will disregard Microsoft's guidance and install visual studio in an unsupported manner.
I understand. I think that I will try the solution to replace my System Drive C with a bigger one.
Before taking such drastic action I recommend giving the virtual machine alternative a chance so you can at least give VS2022 a try. Maybe you will like it. Maybe you will find that VS2022 is not to your liking and you don't want to install it on the real hardware. Anyway, Microsoft has consistently made new VM downloads available when the existing download has reached its expiration date.
You are right. I will first try Visual Studio 2022 first inside a virtual machine like Hypervisor and if I will like the software itself but not the speed of the virtual machine which the software runs within then I will bother to replace my C drive with a bigger one to run Visual Studio 2022 on the real hardware.
Thank you for your suggestion
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(211.20000000000002, 61%, 30%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EBS%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
I always recommend that VS be installed in a VM. It really can not be fully uninstalled, and if an upgrade fails, you may have to repave your box to fix. add in the dotnet workloads, and you really want a sandbox.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(220.8, 14.000000000000002%, 31%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EMP%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)