Visual Studio Installation Logs Location (2019+)

Question

There is a Microsoft Tool called "Collect" which can retrieve logs from the Installer, but where are the actual files being originally created by the Visual Studio Installer for editions that have the stand-alone install app?

Answer 1

In addition to writing normal events to the Event Logs, the newer Visual Studio installer generally writes all logs directly to %TEMP% of the user actually running the installation, using the prefix dd_*.

%TEMP%, at the time of this answer, points to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp

ProcMon can help you narrow down specific use cases for each type of Installation Log, I've encountered the following types:

• dd_setup_* : Setup/execution of next package log
• dd_installer_* : Pre-install logs
• dd_backgrounddownload_* : Pre-update logs for automatic VS updates (before launching Installer)