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Known issues for containers

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

There are a few issues when installing Visual Studio into a Docker container.

Windows container

The following known issues occur when you install Visual Studio Build Tools into a Windows container.

  • You cannot install Visual Studio into a container based on image mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:10.0.14393.1593 . Images tagged with Windows versions before or after 10.0.14393 should work.

  • You cannot install Windows SDK version 10.0.14393 or earlier. Certain packages fail to install and workloads that depend on those packages will not work.

  • Pass -m 2GB (or more) when building the image. Some workloads require more memory than the default 1 GB when installed.

  • Configure Docker to use disks larger than the default 20 GB.

  • Pass --norestart on the command line. As of this writing, attempting to restart a Windows container from within the container returns ERROR_TOO_MANY_OPEN_FILES to the host.

  • If you base your image directly on mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore, the .NET Framework might not install properly and no install error is indicated. Managed code might not run after the install is complete. Instead, base your image on microsoft/dotnet-framework:4.7.1 or later. As an example, you might see an error when building with MSBuild that's similar to the following:

    C:\BuildTools\MSBuild\15.0\bin\Roslyn\Microsoft.CSharp.Core.targets(84,5): error MSB6003: The specified task executable "csc.exe" could not be run. Could not load file or assembly 'System.IO.FileSystem, Version=4.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Build Tools container

The following known issues might occur when you use a Build Tools container. To see whether issues have been fixed or if there are other known issues, visit Developer Community.

  • IntelliTrace might not work in some scenarios within a container.
  • On older versions of Docker for Windows, the default container image size is only 20 GB and will not fit Build Tools. Follow instructions to change image size to 127 GB or more. To confirm a disk space issue, check the log files for more information. Your vslogs\dd_setup_<timestamp>_errors.log file will include the following if you run out of disk space:
Pre-check verification: Visual Studio needs at least 91.99 GB of disk space. Try to free up space on C:\ or change your target drive.
Pre-check verification failed with error(s) :  SizePreCheckEvaluator.

Support or troubleshooting

Sometimes, things can go wrong. If your Visual Studio installation fails, see Troubleshoot Visual Studio installation and upgrade issues for step-by-step guidance.

Here are a few more support options:

  • We also offer an installation chat (English only) support option for installation-related issues.
  • Report product issues to us via the Report a Problem tool that appears both in the Visual Studio Installer and in the Visual Studio IDE. If you're an IT Administrator and don't have Visual Studio installed, you can submit IT Admin feedback here.
  • Suggest a feature, track product issues, and find answers in the Visual Studio Developer Community.

See also