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Trying to create a symbolic link for Visual Studio Community 2017 due to low storage space.

For reference, Disk C is the one with low space. I want the files to be installed to Disk D. 

mklink /j "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community" "D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community"

Ran cmd as admin and it returns The system cannot find the path specified.

May I know the mistake here? Thanks.

WCKennedays
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  • Why are you messing about with links? Doesn't VS2k7 allow you to install at an arbitrary location? – paxdiablo Aug 01 '17 at 08:15
  • @paxdiablo I don't see such option. – WCKennedays Aug 01 '17 at 17:07
  • @WCKennedays, have you already installed the VS community 2017? Please check this: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/heaths/2012/03/07/why-visual-studio-11-requires-space-on-the-system-drive/, when we choose to install VS to another drive, it still need the space on the system drive, it means we cannot totally install VS to another drive. When we try to install VS at the first time and you have not installed any other version before, modify the installation location to another drive, it displays the required size on the system drive and another drive per the selected components. – Sara Liu - MSFT Aug 02 '17 at 02:56
  • @Sara-MSFT May I know is there a workaround/solution for this? – WCKennedays Aug 02 '17 at 07:11

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For now, we cannot completely install VS to another hard drive. During the initial VS installation, we can choose another hard drive to install to install, but most of those components still install in the system drive per this.

Some other community members already reported a suggestion to the VS Product Team, please check this: Allow users to install entirely to another hard drive, it is tags as ‘PLANNED’, due to the complexity and the VS Product Team still have not achieved this requirement, and you can also vote it to make them know the high priority, sorry for this inconvenience.

If you have not never install the VS on your computer before, you can use the mklink /j command to save some spaces on the system drive like this: VS2015 & VS2017 Ignore Path Selection During Installation

Sara Liu - MSFT
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  • Tried it but the setup failed and the log says: Unknown error (0xffffffff) – WCKennedays Aug 02 '17 at 16:41
  • @WCKennedays, please accept my apologize, it seems this symlink method only works before your initial VS installation, i will edit my previous reply. To be honest, this method is a little complex and it is not a recommend method: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32029751/how-to-install-visual-studio-2015-on-a-different-drive, it is better to clean up any available space on your system driver, sorry for this inconvenience. – Sara Liu - MSFT Aug 03 '17 at 07:05