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I use a machine where I don't have administrator rights. I've been able to run programs without admin rights by extracting the program's .zip file to a directory I have created on my desktop. However, I can't find such a .zip file for Visual Studio.

Is there a way to install Visual Studio Community Edition without administrator rights?

Stevoisiak
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PingPing
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  • Zip files doesn't mean you can use something without admin rights. In your case, it looks like you should use Visual Studio Code, or ask your IT department to install Community edition explaining to them how it's Free as in Beer – Panagiotis Kanavos Dec 07 '16 at 09:34
  • I am also looking for something like this. I wonder if you found something. I don't intend to debug or run anything - just being able to read the project in a better way than using some text editor. – bhantol May 11 '17 at 14:44
  • Related: [Running Visual Studio without admin rights](https://stackoverflow.com/q/3810834/3357935) – Stevoisiak Oct 05 '17 at 18:50

3 Answers3

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Practically no. Visual Studio (Express and above, excluding VS Code) consists of multiple components that must be installed as admin, and will be required for the app you're debugging to be available as system-wide component. It might be possible to use ThinApp or its equivalent, but ThinApp can't even work with VS 2010 and it was by far the best of its class.

A (resource intensive) alternative to get VS on any PC will be packaging a VM with VS installed, either creating one yourself or get a ready-made ones. VirtuaBox is available as portable fork if you can't even get Hyper-V tools installed. But this still require kernel drivers installation, which means at least one-time admin access. Depending on your internet connection & budget, it might be more practical to setup a VPS with VS installed, then remote there.

Martheen
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    How can you install VirtuaBox without admin rights? How will it use paravirtualization without installing drivers? – Panagiotis Kanavos Dec 07 '16 at 08:56
  • Oh right, VirtuaBox doesn't really work without the kernel drivers, updating my answer. – Martheen Dec 07 '16 at 09:25
  • But at least with VirtualBox there, the rest of the stuff are contained within a VM instance without any further requiring admin password or corrupting / conflicting your Windows system – daparic Feb 05 '22 at 07:19
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Basically, youre going to need to download an iso of windows, then download QEMU, and run it as invoker by doing that batch file thing (https://techcult.com/how-to-install-software-without-admin-rights/). Set it to anywhere, and then figure out how to boot it to QEMU cause I have absolutely no idea how (ive only done it with Kali Linux). and just install VC on there. Sorry about being so vague.

furiousdestiny
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There is no way to install or use Visual Studio on Windows without admin rights. You can either use a different program to write your code in and then compile using a different compiler. Or use qemu (since it does not require admin rights) to run a windows virtual machine.

Zac Langston
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