Visual Studio 2019 Offline Layout Update ignoring '--noUpdateInstaller'

Unfortunately the --noUpdateInstaller switch is very misleading and doesn't quite do what it suggests by name.

The Visual Studio 'offline installer' will only really work offline if your computer has no connection to the internet, otherwise it will always reach out to MSFT and check whether updates are available or not, at least for the installer program vs_installer.exe itself. If you don't have a connection to the internet, you'll need to specify --noUpdateInstaller to ignore the error that it couldn't check for an update.

The "Tip" on create-a-network-installation-of-visual-studio says

If you want to install from an offline source on a non-internet connected computer, specify both the --noWeb and --noUpdateInstaller options. The former prevents downloading updated workloads, components, and so on. The latter prevents the installer from self-updating from the web.

what's missing there is that the command execution will actually fail if a newer version of the installer is available with exit code '1'. This seems to be broken by design, but can be worked around with a small modifications to your install/deployment/upgrade scripts.

workaround #1 - always try to upgrade vs_installer first, then use the offline layout

(sample PowerShell script used to deploy VS to hosts, note: vs_professional.exe is called from UNC share!)

# let the magical vs_installer be updated, if vs has already be installed previously

if (Test-IsVSAlreadyInstalled) {
  try {
    vs_professional.exe --quiet --update --wait
  } catch {
    Write-Host "failed to update magical vs_installer"
  }
}

# only pass "update" if VS is already installed
$updatePrefix = if (Test-IsVSAlreadyInstalled) { "update" } else { "" }

# install or upgrade visual studio
vs_professional.exe $updatePrefix --passive --norestart --wait --productkey $productKey --noWeb $selectedWorkloads

workaround #2 - only pass --noUpdateInstaller if not connected to the internet

NOTE: this will allow vs_installer.exe to update itself, yet only use vsix packages and binaries from your offline layout location.

(sample PowerShell script used to deploy VS to hosts, note: vs_professional.exe is called from UNC share!)

hasInternetConnection = try {
  $request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create( "http://microsoft.com" )
  $response = $request.GetResponse()
  $response.StatusCode -eq 200
}
catch {
  $false
}

# use '--noUpdateInstaller' iff we are not connected to the internet!
$updateInstaller = if ($hasInternetConnection) {
  ""
}
else {
  "--noUpdateInstaller"
}

# only pass "update" if VS is already installed
$updatePrefix = if (Test-IsVSAlreadyInstalled) { "update" } else { "" }

# install or upgrade visual studio
vs_professional.exe $updatePrefix --passive --norestart --wait --productkey $productKey --nocache $updateInstaller --noWeb $selectedWorkloads

I'm using a script such as described in workaround #2 wrapped in a Chocolatey Package and getting good results so far.

The call to vs_Professional.exe update --wait --norestart --noweb --noUpdateInstaller ... fails with exit code '1' pretty quick after it was invoked.

Actually, every time you update vs, you must first update the vs_installer program. And as you described, you use vs_Professional.exe update --wait --norestart --noweb --noUpdateInstaller, it means that you are updating the vs_installer program. Hint from here.

Is there a way to actually force --noUpdateInstaller, can the Visual Installer also be updated offline prior to updating Visual Studio?

And --noUpdateInstaller means that it will prevent updating vs_installer.exe. If you execute update, it will return a non-zero exit code. So you cannot use --noUpdateInstaller with update.

1) If you want to install the old VS offline package on your agent, you should use this command to install it:(disconnect the Internet)

C:\Layout\vs_Professional.exe --wait --norestart --noweb --quiet --noUpdateInstaller

2) If you want to update the vs offline package to the latest version, you should try this:

On the server, Find the program that previously created the offline installation package and update it with this command:

vs_Professional.exe --quiet --update

Then run this to overwrite the old Layout folder:

vs_Professional.exe --layout c:\xxx(the previous offline packages and overwrite the latest updates to this package)

Or run the second command directly will also update the offline package to the latest version.

Hope it could help you.