Visual studio does not install .vsix files

Eggi picture Eggi · Sep 18, 2014 · Viewed 28.9k times · Source

I've both VS 2012 and VS 2013 installed on my computer. The problem is that when I download an VSIX-File and open it with the Visual Studio version selector the file gets opened by VS but instead of installing it. VS opens the file as if it was an unknown binary format.

The attached image shows how VSIX-files are opened (happens with every file ... this is just an example):

enter image description here

Answer

Tri Nguyen picture Tri Nguyen · Sep 22, 2014

I faced the same issue. Just use the VSIXInstaller to install the extension.

You can open "Developer Command Prompt for VS2012" tool in Start -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 -> Visual Studio Tools. On the console, run the below command:

VSIXInstaller <path to vsix file>