I installed the user version side-by-side with the system version with no problems. The basic differences between the two is that the system version installs on the file system like every other app. The user install is basically a click-once (or web installer) version that installs in the User folder of the machine.

The settings made to VS Code in the system version save for Everybody on the computer and the user version the settings are only for the user. I find that the behavior of the user version is a bit annoying for me because I have reasons to want to open multiple copies of VS Code at the same time and the user version only allows one instance. Otherwise, there's not really anything different between the two as far as I can tell.

you should default to user install and only use system install when necessary. principle of least power and whatnot.

i somehow always irreparably fuck up my python install on windows because of conflicts between system versions, local versions, system pip, local pip, it’s a fuckin mess. any seasoned python dev will tell you the solution is to use one version of python and only install packages locally, preferably through aggressive use of virtual environments.

the main benefit of user install is isolation and orthogonality. system programs are in program files, personal programs that you would want to keep with you across machines are to be installed locally.

this is less relevant these days now that people rarely share computers, but the idea is the same. i act as if there’s another user who uses my computer under a different account sometimes. some programs should be universal, like photo editing software, video players, etc., while it isn’t really important that everyone have access to my customized text editor or the 800 million fonts i download.

The current download page has a Windows icon that downloads the AMD64 user installer. You don't get an option to select the user or system installer. Interestingly, below the Windows icon there are links to multiple ARM64 installers, including the ARM64 system installer, but you don't want that one.

The link to download the AMD64 system installer file is here. This link is on the Visual Studio Code installation and setup page in the 'User setup versus system setup' section: Visual Studio Code on Windows

Stealing from this answer, I see that visualstudio.com says:

If you are a current user of the system-wide Windows setup, you will be prompted to install user setup, which we recommend using from now on.

That suggests to me that the error message we've both seen will soon be obsolete.

That is, when the installer sees you logged in as admin (which conventionally means you wouldn't be coding), it assumes you wanted this now-intended-to-be-deprecated use case where you're installing once on the system for ALL users, which the user setup won't do.

You've probably seen installers ask this: "Do you want to install for all users or just your user?" If all users, it asks you to give the installer admin permissions and installs in Program Files. If just you, it installs in a user path (like VS Code for users does: C:\Users\thySmyUserName\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code).

Instead of a unified system/user install, VS Code seems to have broken it into two.

Make sense? If you're installing to code when logged in as admin, like on a remote box or something, that might still be a bit of an admin smell, but the user setup sh/w/ould otherwise be fine.

If you wanted to install for every user on the box, which you could do with your fancy admin permissions, you'd need to get a different installer. That's all.

(I'm a first time responder after many years.) Note there is another useful discussion on this subject at: (What is the migration procedure for moving from Windows system-wide Visual Studio Code to user setup?). I too got worried when I got unexpected messages from the install informing me that the version was already installed and asking me if I wanted to continue? I clicked NO, why continue if it is already installed. However, in the process I became aware of the distinction between 'distribution' and 'version'. It turns out that the install works pretty much flawlessly no matter how you go about it. You can delete the system-wide distribution or not. If you do delete, you can delete before the new install, (which I did). You can also delete after the new install. (I didn't read too closely but there might be an extra step if you want to use both distributions.) In hindsight, since all approaches work nearly flawlessly, a minimal amount of instruction is all that was required. But in foresight, a little extra information on what to expect would have expedited the process for several people, including me. P.S. I found the answers in this thread useful. Thanks.

Thanks

(I'm a first time responder after many years.) Note there is another useful discussion on this subject at: (What is the migration procedure for moving from Windows system-wide Visual Studio Code to user setup?). I too got worried when I got unexpected messages from the install informing me that the version was already installed and asking me if I wanted to continue? I clicked NO, why continue if it is already installed. However, in the process I became aware of the distinction between 'distribution' and 'version'. It turns out that the install works pretty much flawlessly no matter how you go about it. You can delete the system-wide distribution or not. If you do delete, you can delete before the new install, (which I did). You can also delete after the new install. (I didn't read too closely but there might be an extra step if you want to use both distributions.) In hindsight, since all approaches work nearly flawlessly, a minimal amount of instruction is all that was required. But in foresight, a little extra information on what to expect would have expedited the process for several people, including me. P.S. I found the answers in this thread useful. Thanks.