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visual-studio-2013vsixvsixmanifest

How to create Visual Studio extension (vsix) targeting Visual Studio Community Edition


I am upgraging and old Visual Studio extension. It's simple, so I want to target all possible versions of Visual Studio. As it seems that Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition now supports extensions:

With the new Community edition, any developer can use those extensions as well.

I have decided to include it as well.

The problem is that I am not sure how to update the .vsixmanifest file in order to support the Community Edition - this is the <InstallationTarget> element's Id property, which, according to the documentation, has the following "expected" values:

  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.IntegratedShell
  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.Pro
  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.Premium
  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.Ultimate
  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.VWDExpress
  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.VPDExpress
  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.VSWinExpress
  • Microsoft.VisualStudio.VSLS
  • My.Shell.App

none of which is an obvious choice.


Solution

  • Just target Microsoft.VisualStudio.Pro. Also visx with a vspackage is not installable in VS Express editions, no matter what you put in the manifest, in fact only CE or higher will install these.