Press Win + X, then choose Terminal (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin).
Navigate to the folder where you downloaded vs_community.exe. For example: microsoft visual studio community 2022 offline installer
cd C:\Users\YourName\Downloads
You must also ship the appropriate Visual Studio certificates and .NET Runtime if not included. The layout command automatically includes them, but verify the \certificates folder exists. Press Win + X , then choose Terminal
Visual Studio Community 2022 is free, but licensing restrictions still apply when using an offline installer: You must also ship the appropriate Visual Studio
Creating an offline installer for deployment within a team is perfectly legal and supported by Microsoft.
Microsoft provides two primary ways to get Visual Studio:
C:\VS2022_Offline\
│
├── vs_setup.exe # Offline installer executable
├── vs_installer.opc # Catalog / manifest data
├── ChannelManifest.json # Component versions & dependencies
├── certificates/ # Microsoft signing certs (for offline trust)
├── packages/ # Actual payload
│ ├── Win10SDK, Win11SDK
│ ├── DotNetCore, DotNetFramework
│ ├── MSVC_v143, CMake
│ ├── SQLServerExpress, SSDT
│ └── ...
├── resources/ # UI resources (license, EULA)
└── Response.json (if you use --passive config)
The layout is portable – you can burn it to DVD, copy to USB, or serve over a network share.