What is VSCode User Setup for Windows?

Question

On a Windows workstation after a recent update of VSCode I'm prompted (recommended) to install a "User Setup Distribution of VSCode for Windows"

The link for more info leads to:

Download User Setup

If you are a current user of the system-wide Windows setup, you will be prompted to switch to the user setup, which we recommend using from now on. Don't worry, all your settings and extensions will be kept during the transition.

I don't see anything that explains what changes this distribution makes or how it's different from a distribution for other platforms, like X11/linux.

Code is a great editor, so I use it on various platforms depending where I am. Where is the explanation of what is included in this updated "Distribution"?

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_26#_user-setup-for-windows

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Answer 1

VSCode User Setup is a new installer, with a new install strategy, which installs the whole executable for VSCode and its dependencies in directories which don't require system-level / administrator permissions to modify. This allows a few things:

• Users who don't have admin privileges to their workstation can still install and use VS Code
• VS Code can perform its updates with fewer prompts (basically without the system-level privilege escalation prompts)

One tip: If you already had VSCode installed as a system-wide installation and you switch to the new installer as prompted/recommended, the User Setup installer will suggest that you uninstall the system-wide install first. I was a little nervous that I might lose my extensions doing this, but I went ahead and tried it and am happy to report that my extensions, recent projects, and other data regarding my VSCode use remained intact between uninstalling the "old" version and then proceeding with install of the new User Setup version.

Answer 2

(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.