How to Update Visual Studio Code Portable?

Question

I typically update the standard version of Visual Studio Code by clicking Help => Check for Updates (or just letting it update automatically in the background), but this option is missing from the Help menu in the portable version. Furthermore, it doesn't update automatically in the background despite the fact that I haven't overridden the following default settings:

"update.channel": "default",
"update.enableWindowsBackgroundUpdates": true,

Are there any other ways to update the portable version of Visual Studio Code, or do I have to manually uninstall/reinstall it every time a major update is released?

Lastditch

I don't use the portable version, but I suspect that the "automatic update" feature is a part of the installer. – Erasion

So do you think that running the portable installer will result in the program being detected and updated (rather than installed)? – Lastditch

I re-ran the installer in the parent directory of the VS Code Portable folder, and it did indeed update the program. However, it only achieved this because it re-installed Visual Studio Code Portable from scratch, which took as much time as a portable installation and also resulted in my debugger configurations being reset (i.e. the launch.json file was cleared).I was able to recover the configurations from a backup file, but as a result of all this I wouldn't say that re-installation is a very convenient way to update a portable installation. – Lastditch

Official doc: code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/… – Tittle

Answer 1

After unzipping the VS Code download, simply create a data folder within Code's folder:

|- VSCode-win32-x64-1.25.0-insider
|   |- Code.exe (or code executable)
|   |- data
|   |- ...

The data folder can be moved to other VS Code installations. This is useful for updating your portable Code version: simply move the data folder to a newer extracted version of VS Code.

On Windows and Linux, you can update VS Code by copying the data folder over to a more recent version of VS Code.

From their docs

Poniard

Answer 2

If you are using the one that is downloaded from github, you can just set up a github repository in your pc, pull from the github repo, and check for updates from time to time.

Flodden

Is there a way to do that which doesn't involve setting up the repository on the PC? I use the portable version on a USB key, which I run from multiple computers, so I can't depend on host directories/files for my processes. – Lastditch

There is also a portable version of Github here: github.com/daemondevin/GitHubDesktopPortable – Tello