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c#visual-studio-code.net-coreomnisharp

VS Code / OmniSharp - how to set path to dotnet SDK / CLI tools explicitly

I'm using Visual Studio Code. On my machine, I have two separate installations of the Net Core SDK / dotnet CLI tools

  • an outdated version (netcore 1.1) in the standard path %ProgramFiles%\dotnet and
  • a recent version (netcore 2.0) installed to a different, custom path %AppData%\...

I need Visual Studio Core - and thereby, Omnisharp - to use the recent, i.e. custom installation. Unfortunately, due to my machine setup, the default "dotnet" command is registered with the out of date installation, and I cannot change this. Omnisharp is using the SDK from the same location as well.

  1. Is there any way for a non-admin user to specify in Visual Studio Code / Omnisharp to use the dotnet tools from my custom location?
  2. Any particular configuration setting or similiar?

For context, as to why my machine has such a weird setup and why I cannot do much about it, see Cmd precedence: How to use correct dotnet.exe when installed in 2 locations?

Thanks

Solution

  • Following Bogey's lead of 2018-02-16, and after manually installing the SDK per https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/windows?tabs=netcore31#download-and-manually-install, when I was then following the tutorial at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tutorials/with-visual-studio-code I kept getting messages popping up or in the Visual Studio Code's terminal saying something like

    It was not possible to find any installed .NET Core SDKs
Did you mean to run .NET Core SDK commands? Install a .NET Core SDK from:
      https://aka.ms/dotnet-download

    But with a batch file in which I set the PATH environment variable before then starting Code, I am able to run the commands in the tutorial, eg, dotnet new console, successfully.

    The batch file I created sets the PATH to be as it normally would (ie, as revealed by running echo %PATH% at a command prompt), but with references to SDKs not installed manually by me removed and with a reference to the SDK I installed manually added. Roughly:

    set PATH=C:\Program Files (x86)\various\things;C:\WINDOWS\other\things;C:\Users\user1930469\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin;C:\Users\user1930469\my_manually_installed_sdk\dotnet
start "" "C:\Users\user1930469\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe"
exit

    With Visual Studio Code then open, I can confirm the value of the PATH variable in Code's terminal with

    $env:path

    and successfully run commands like

    dotnet --help

    Thanks for the tip, Bogey.