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So I'm in a situation where I need to have VS2017 enterprise installed, but I so happen to have the community version installed already (also 2017 version) with all the extensions and workloads (from the modify menu of the installer) already working in that edition.

So my question is would it be possible to share these across each of the versions so that I don't need to install presumably the same things over again?

I've thought of creating hard symlinks to the folders but I don't think that will work without all the appropriate information in some other files.

Searching only gave me guides on how to import/export plugins to another computer and from what I understand, it's basically just a list of what vs will install on another computer.

hello
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  • See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46235923/export-import-vs-extensions-list – Sergey Vlasov Mar 18 '18 at 07:09
  • @hello, I often use the Export Extensions tool as a workaround even if it still download and install all extensions in other Environment:https://github.com/ttrider/VSExtensionsImportExport – Jack Zhai Mar 19 '18 at 05:32

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I couldn't find a exact fit solution to my problem but I did find a little workaround. Turns out the installer is a little smart this time.

First I compiled vsclone, then I put the output into cmd after installing vs_enterprise.exe.

The modify window should appear and everything is selected, click modify then wait for it to finish. The thing is that the installer surprisingly detects already installed workloads although after installing, microsoft magically adds 6gb of files to the folders it installed to (still better than the 16-17 gb that it would take if it reinstalled everything).

Finally I got a program that could help run symlink /j on multiple folders that included the vs packages after transferring those folders into my d drive (I'm running a laptop so I have very limited ssd space).

Final product works with all workloads installed properly, hope I didn't miss anything important here. I unfortunately didn't analyse the filesystem before hitting modify so we may never know what used 6gb...

hello
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