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Launch Visual Studio using DTE

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Starting with Visual Studio 2017, the mechanism to launch Visual Studio using DTE is different to launching previous versions of Visual Studio. This change is necessary because Visual Studio 2017 and later supports side-by-side installations of major releases (for example, you can have a preview and a release version installed side by side).

The remainder of this article shows the code you can use to launch Visual Studio 2019 using DTE.

Set up the project

To see the launching code in action, create a project by following these steps.

  1. Create a new Console App project for the .NET Framework.

  2. Install the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Setup.Configuration.Interop NuGet package and add a reference to the assembly.

  3. Add a reference to EnvDTE.

  4. Paste the example code that follows into the Program.cs file.

  5. Press F5 to run the program. You should see Visual Studio 2019 open before the program exits.

Example code

using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Setup.Configuration;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComTypes;
using System.Threading;

namespace ConsoleLauncherApp
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            EnvDTE.DTE dte = LaunchVsDte(isPreRelease: false);

            dte.MainWindow.WindowState = EnvDTE.vsWindowState.vsWindowStateMaximize;
            dte.MainWindow.WindowState = EnvDTE.vsWindowState.vsWindowStateMinimize;
            dte.MainWindow.WindowState = EnvDTE.vsWindowState.vsWindowStateNormal;
            dte.Quit();
        }

        private static EnvDTE.DTE LaunchVsDte(bool isPreRelease)
        {
            ISetupInstance setupInstance = GetSetupInstance(isPreRelease);
            string installationPath = setupInstance.GetInstallationPath();
            string executablePath = Path.Combine(installationPath, @"Common7\IDE\devenv.exe");
            Process vsProcess = Process.Start(executablePath);
            string runningObjectDisplayName = $"VisualStudio.DTE.16.0:{vsProcess.Id}";

            IEnumerable<string> runningObjectDisplayNames = null;
            object runningObject;
            for (int i = 0; i < 60; i++)
            {
                try
                {
                    runningObject = GetRunningObject(runningObjectDisplayName, out runningObjectDisplayNames);
                }
                catch
                {
                    runningObject = null;
                }

                if (runningObject != null)
                {
                    return (EnvDTE.DTE)runningObject;
                }

                Thread.Sleep(millisecondsTimeout: 1000);
            }

            throw new TimeoutException($"Failed to retrieve DTE object. Current running objects: {string.Join(";", runningObjectDisplayNames)}");
        }

        private static object GetRunningObject(string displayName, out IEnumerable<string> runningObjectDisplayNames)
        {
            IBindCtx bindContext = null;
            NativeMethods.CreateBindCtx(0, out bindContext);

            IRunningObjectTable runningObjectTable = null;
            bindContext.GetRunningObjectTable(out runningObjectTable);

            IEnumMoniker monikerEnumerator = null;
            runningObjectTable.EnumRunning(out monikerEnumerator);

            object runningObject = null;
            List<string> runningObjectDisplayNameList = new List<string>();
            IMoniker[] monikers = new IMoniker[1];
            IntPtr numberFetched = IntPtr.Zero;
            while (monikerEnumerator.Next(1, monikers, numberFetched) == 0)
            {
                IMoniker moniker = monikers[0];

                string objectDisplayName = null;
                try
                {
                    moniker.GetDisplayName(bindContext, null, out objectDisplayName);
                }
                catch (UnauthorizedAccessException)
                {
                    // Some ROT objects require elevated permissions.
                }

                if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(objectDisplayName))
                {
                    runningObjectDisplayNameList.Add(objectDisplayName);
                    if (objectDisplayName.EndsWith(displayName, StringComparison.Ordinal))
                    {
                        runningObjectTable.GetObject(moniker, out runningObject);
                        if (runningObject == null)
                        {
                            throw new InvalidOperationException($"Failed to get running object with display name {displayName}");
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            runningObjectDisplayNames = runningObjectDisplayNameList;
            return runningObject;
        }

        private static ISetupInstance GetSetupInstance(bool isPreRelease)
        {
            return GetSetupInstances().First(i => IsPreRelease(i) == isPreRelease);
        }

        private static IEnumerable<ISetupInstance> GetSetupInstances()
        {
            ISetupConfiguration setupConfiguration = new SetupConfiguration();
            IEnumSetupInstances enumerator = setupConfiguration.EnumInstances();

            int count;
            do
            {
                ISetupInstance[] setupInstances = new ISetupInstance[1];
                enumerator.Next(1, setupInstances, out count);
                if (count == 1 && setupInstances[0] != null)
                {
                    yield return setupInstances[0];
                }
            }
            while (count == 1);
        }

        private static bool IsPreRelease(ISetupInstance setupInstance)
        {
            ISetupInstanceCatalog setupInstanceCatalog = (ISetupInstanceCatalog)setupInstance;
            return setupInstanceCatalog.IsPrerelease();
        }

        private static class NativeMethods
        {
            [DllImport("ole32.dll")]
            public static extern int CreateBindCtx(uint reserved, out IBindCtx ppbc);
        }
    }
}

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