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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?
HappyCoding
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jump4791
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8 Answers8

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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.

Community
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Jalal
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    Note: never install 2017 before and then 2015! It looks obvious but can it happen: on a new PC I tried to use only the 2017, but, when I had to install the 2015, I had really bad moments. I ended up uninstalling everything and starting again in the right order. – ilcorvo Jan 17 '18 at 10:27
  • @ilcorvo please don't spread nonsense. I installed vs2015 on a Windows 10 where vs2017 already was installed on it. Everyting works perfectly... – Ozkan Feb 14 '19 at 12:20
  • Yes why? First I had Visual Studio 2017 Professional with nearly all components installed. – Ozkan Feb 15 '19 at 13:09
  • It was over a year ago... but I remember that one of the problems that I didn't overcome was to get the typescript 1.8 work for the 2015. – ilcorvo Feb 15 '19 at 13:25
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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.

Chuck Walbourn
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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!

mobrien118
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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.

Jester
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    Rather than add another answer - I just wanted to "me too" this one. :) Whenever I install a new version of VS, I don't remove the older one until such time as it is really no longer needed. I currently have 2013, 2015 and 2017 all playing very nicely together on 2 different Windows 10 machines. I have also not found any issue in opening the three solutions that I work on the most with either version, so should not be an issue there. Sometimes 2017 (just like 2015 before it) will want to update the VS version info at the top of the solution file - I usually undo that one change... – Justin Greywolf Dec 22 '17 at 19:07
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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!

Technologicus
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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

Neil B.
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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.

  1. 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.
Programmer
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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.

Eric Aya
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Moses
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