My HDD crashed a couple of days ago. After performing a fresh install of windows and my dev tools, I noticed that only Community 2022 is available via the Visual Studio Installer. Not sure if I'm missing something obvious, but I can't see any way of obtaining it any longer.
Because I require some plugins that aren't compatible with 2022 yet, I need 2019. If there's no way to obtain the community edition any longer, I might have to purchase a copy of VS2019 or re-license the plugin for 2022... and ideally I'd prefer to not spend anything.
Sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't find anything after a quick search.
Videos
Hi @Beast,
Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!
You can try to download the VS2019 Community using the link:
https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vs_community.exe
Sincerely,
Anna
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Community edition is special. Microsoft does not support any version of VS Community Edition other than the latest version which is VS 2022. If you have an MSDN subscription or a previous license to VS 2019 Professional/Edition then you can install and continue to use it. It is in extended support until 2029.
If you happen to have a copy of the VS 2019 Community installer then you can continue to install and use it. It won't just stop working. The trick is that you have to have already gotten a copy of the installer first. In the future, if you want to go this route, then I'd recommend keeping a copy of the installer so you can get back to it if needed.
Out of curiosity, is there a particular reason why you need VS2019? VS2022 is compatible with it and solutions loaded in one can be loaded in the other so you can technically bounce between the 2 versions in most cases. You mentioned minifilter drivers but that is supported in VS022 as well. I know the template for it was removed because it wasn't useful. Here's a link to a discussion about the changes and a starter file that might help you.
While the link shows Professional and Enterprise, I've tried it myself and it can install the Community version.
First fully uninstall Visual Studio 2019. Then download the Professional edition of the version you want and run it. In the "available" tab from the installer you'll find that it can install all 3 editions including Community of both 2017 and 2019, at the choosen version, regardless of the downloaded binary.
Note that this actually downloads the real installers from the web, thus while they work right now, we can't ensure they'll work in the future.
Here is the official source for all previous versions of all 3 product lines: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2019/history#release-dates-and-build-numbers