| title | Repair your Visual Studio installation |
|---|---|
| titleSuffix | |
| description | Repair or update your Visual Studio installation with the Visual Studio Installer, resolve issues with available fixes, and reacquire necessary files. |
| ms.date | 12/17/2025 |
| ms.custom | vs-acquisition |
| ms.topic | how-to |
| author | anandmeg |
| ms.author | meghaanand |
| manager | mijacobs |
| ms.subservice | installation |
Sometimes your Visual Studio installation becomes damaged or corrupted. A repair is useful for fixing a wide variety of install-time issues, including update issues.
Use repair if you're having issues with:
- Installation payload, which can happen when writing a file to disk is unsuccessful and the file gets corrupted. Repair can reacquire needed files.
- Client-side download, assuming that you fixed any internet connection or proxy issues.
- Updating Visual Studio. Repair fixes many common update issues.
Tip
An unstable internet connection or an issue in a Windows service, like Windows Installer, can cause install issues. In those scenarios, repair might also be affected. To check for underlying issues, review the error report generated by the Visual Studio Installer.
Note
Repairing Visual Studio resets user settings and reinstalls your existing assemblies. If you're experiencing a product issue and repair doesn't fix it, create a Visual Studio Feedback Ticket. For more information, see How to report a problem with Visual Studio or Visual Studio Installer.
To repair your installation, follow these steps.
-
Find the Visual Studio Installer on your computer.
In the Windows Start menu, you can search for installer, and then select Visual Studio Installer from the results.
:::image type="content" source="media/vs-2022/vs-installer.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing the result of a Start menu search for the Visual Studio Installer.":::
[!NOTE] You can also find the Visual Studio Installer in the following location:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\setup.exe
You might be prompted to update the Visual Studio Installer before you continue. If so, follow the prompts.
::: moniker range="visualstudio"
-
In the Visual Studio Installer, look for the installation of Visual Studio that you want to repair. Then choose Repair from the More dropdown menu.
:::image type="content" source="media/visualstudio/visual-studio-installer-repair.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing the Repair option in the More dropdown menu of the Visual Studio Installer.":::
[!NOTE] Repairing Visual Studio resets its environment. Repairing removes local customizations like per-user extensions installed without elevation, user settings, and profiles. It restores your synchronized settings such as themes, colors, and key bindings.
The Repair option appears only for installed instances of Visual Studio. If you don't see the Repair option, check whether you selected More in a version that appears in the Visual Studio Installer as Available rather than Installed.
You can monitor the progress bar in the Visual Studio Installer, but it doesn't provide an estimated time for repairs.
::: moniker-end
::: moniker range="vs-2022"
-
In the Visual Studio Installer, look for the installation of Visual Studio that you want to repair. Then choose Repair from the More dropdown menu.
:::image type="content" source="media/vs-2022/vs-installer-repair.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing the Repair option in the More dropdown menu of the Visual Studio Installer.":::
[!NOTE] Repairing Visual Studio resets its environment. Repairing removes local customizations like per-user extensions installed without elevation, user settings, and profiles. It restores your synchronized settings such as themes, colors, and key bindings.
The Repair option appears only for installed instances of Visual Studio. If you don't see the Repair option, check whether you selected More in a version that appears in the Visual Studio Installer as Available rather than Installed.
You can monitor the progress bar in the Visual Studio Installer, but it doesn't provide an estimated time for repairs.
::: moniker-end
[!INCLUDEinstall_get_support_md]