MSVC Manifest Archive

This repository archives the Microsoft Visual Studio installer manifest, allowing a user to install old versions of visual studio, or to download old versions of the Windows SDK for diffing purposes.

This repository has one branch per MSVC version:

• release-17 tracks Visual Studio 2022.
• pre-17 tracks Visual Studio 2022 preview.
• release-16 tracks Visual Studio 2019.
• pre-16 tracks Visual Studio 2019 Preview (note - this version is currently dead. The manifest is currently located on a microsoft-internal domain).
• release-15 tracks Visual Studio 2017.
• pre-15 tracks Visual Studio 2017 preview.

How it works

Each branch has two files:

• channel.json is the top-level descriptor used by the Visual Studio installer. It describes the different editions of Visual Studio that can be installed for this release, the current version, and most importantly, a link to a vsman, short for Visual Studio Manifest.
• manifest.json is that vsman file, which is a manifest giving instructions on how to download and install each of the individual components that make up a visual studio installation.

Each of those files is provided in two flavours:

• The raw_ file is the file as it was downloaded by the microsoft server. This may be necessary for some use-cases involving verifying the signatures of the manifests.
• The unprefixed files are formatted using jq for easy diffing and viewing.