cannot install github copilot on visual studio 2022

Question

Like the title says. I cannot install github copilot on visual studio 2022 version 17.4.4 (latest)

i am on a arm64 windows 11 parallels virtual machine on a macbook pro with m1 chip

I cannot find the extension in the "manage extensions" window and when i try to manually install the extension from the website it just fails installing. What am i missing?

Inexpugnable

Pretty sure that the extension itself hasn't been ported to arm64 VS 2022. Right now the extensions is showing as only supporting VS 2022 amd64. – Fanciful

ahh that could be the issue – Inexpugnable

Meahwhile, and I know it's not a real solution, I'm pretty sure that the GitHub Copilot extension for Visual Studio Code arm64 is working correclty. It's really the only option that I can think of to help you out whilst you wait for the VS 2022 extension to be ported to the arm64 architecture. – Fanciful

neither does it work in visual studio 2022 community. However, it works for vs code! – Hibernal

I am also using Macbook M2 Chip still not available try using this link. marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GitHub.copilotvs – Sennit

Answer 1

Here is another workaround for installing amd64 extensions on VS 2022 for ARM:

1. Dowload the extension
2. Open the .VSIX file with 7ZIP or similar
3. Extract and edit the file extension.vsixmanifest
4. In the file, look for the existing Installation Target

    <InstallationTarget Id="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Community" Version="[17.0,18.0)">
      <ProductArchitecture>amd64</ProductArchitecture>
    </InstallationTarget>

5. Add a new installation target, copying and pasting the existing one, but changing the ProductAchitecture to Arm64, respecting the case

    <InstallationTarget Id="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Community" Version="[17.0,18.0)">
      <ProductArchitecture>amd64</ProductArchitecture>
    </InstallationTarget>
    <InstallationTarget Id="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Community" Version="[17.0,18.0)">
      <ProductArchitecture>Arm64</ProductArchitecture>
    </InstallationTarget>

6. Save the file and put it again in the .VSIX
7. Install the extension by double clicking the file .VSIX

I have done these steps with several extensions and for the moment everything works fine.

Remember that the versions in the Installation Targets must be the same for both Product Architectures.

Tolson

Thank you @Tolson for sharing this. I tried this method and it worked fine. Opened the file in 7Zip File Manager. Updated the said manifest file and added "arm64" (it should be lowercase). – Livingstone

Answer 2

Solution For Windows ARM

Note: Microsoft doesn't have an official version to Github Copilot for Windows ARM so this tutorial will force installation manually by extracting the extension content.

How this solution works?

We will install another (non copilot) extension into Visual Studio and then after that is installed we will extract the content from the Copilot Extension and put into the previous extension folder (replace the content) so Visual Studio will load it.

Step 1

Make sure you have the latest version of Visual Studio (DON'T USE THE VS PREVIEW VERSION)

Step 2

Press Win+R and go to the folder %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\ there you will see a weird named folder with your VS version, in my case is VS 2022 v17.6.5

If you have multiple VS installed there will be multiple of these folders, consider uninstalling other VS to easily identify which one is the correct.

• Enter the selected folder and you should see the Extensions folder, enter inside that.

If you don't have any extension installed as me, there will be just the default files there:

Step 3

Install some extension first that will be replaced later, now I will install the Copilot Chat which is not what we want but we will use it's folder to place the Copilot extension:

• Close Visual Studio and it will install, after that you should see some new content on the Extensions folder:

Step 4

Download the Copilot Extension .vsix file from the marketplace

• Open the .vsix with 7ZIP or any other tool
• Extract the content to inside EVERY FOLDER in the Extensions folder, in my case I will extract inside the two folders that you see on my step 3. If you did it right the replace prompt will show up, replace it!

Step 5

Open Visual studio and if it worked you should see it on the Installed menu:

Step 6

Add your github account to Visual Studio, BEFORE THIS make sure you have an active subscription or trial to the Copilot service.

• After adding github to your VS, check the logs to find any errors. You might want to restart VS some times to force it reload!

Bonus

Demo on testing it:

If you liked, please thumbs up this answer :)

Refection

It worked for me on MacOS Ventura, M1 Max, Parallels with Windows 11 ARM. Genius! – Plumate

Answer 3

I had the same problem, installation failed.

What I did was:

1. Signed up with a trial on Github (requires credit card)
2. Updated visual studio 2022 to the latest version v17.5.5
3. Open VS2022 and search for copilot extension called "Github Copilot" and install it
4. Start VS2022 after extension installed, and VS automatically opens a browser window to Github requesting a code. Copy the code from the VS output window to the browser window.
5. Github page requires you to authorize copilot access to the VS client
6. (optionally) Close and reopen VS2022 if you have any issues.

Below is a link to CoPilot getting started page with more information.

https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/getting-started-with-github-copilot?tool=visualstudio

Ferous