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visual-studiovisual-studio-extensionsvsixvs-extensibilityvsx

Where are custom extensions installed in Visual Studio?


Where are custom extensions installed in Visual Studio? I know you could get path though ExtensionManager.GetInstalledExtensions(). However, it seems none of the paths found corresponds to my extension.


Solution

  • Extensions (if deployed as VSIX) will be installed to the user´s profile; each extension will be installed into a folder with a random name, for instance:

    %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\Extensions\s5lxc0ne.1kp
    

    If you want to obtain the package installation path at runtime, you can obtain that information from the assembly that defines the Package class.

    static string GetAssemblyLocalPathFrom(Type type)
    {
        string codebase = type.Assembly.CodeBase;
        var uri = new Uri(codebase, UriKind.Absolute);
        return uri.LocalPath;
    }
    
    ...
    
    string installationPath = GetAssemblyLocalPathFrom(typeof(MyPackage));