understanding of Visual Studio Workloads, Components and packages

Question

when I'm examining some VS installer logs from different computers to check for differences for example: dd_setup_2019123333.log:

there are some lines like:

> Package: Microsoft.Net.Core.SDK.MSBuildExtensions,version=15.9.28307.51,
> CurrentState: Absent, RequestedState: Present, DetectionState: Absent,
> PlannedAction: Install.

there will be also further entries and a dd_setup_201911312323_Microsoft.Net.Core.SDK.MSBuildExtensions.log file with more detailed steps.

How do I find the VS workload or components that depends on that package, so I am able to install it properly by defining VS components? Where else could I find the source of that package?

and if I want to check it vice versa:

> Property: InstallationWorkloads, value:
> Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.CoreEditor,Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.ManagedDesktop,Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb

2nd question: where do I find, what's included in eg Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb ?

Edit: Answer for 2nd Q is mostly here :

Answer 1

First of all, please let me introduce the relationship between packages, components and workloads.

If we install a workload, some components are required by that workload to install, some are recommended and others are optional.

And if we install a component, several packages will be installed for that component.

Eg: If I install a component "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Unity" , apart from the " Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Unity " package, some packages which have dependency with it also will be installed such as " SyntaxTree.VisualStudio.Unity.Msi,version=3.9.0.3 " package.(We can find them in C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\VisualStudio\\Packages )

How do I find the VS workload or components that depends on that package?

For most packages, we can find which component and workload depends on it according to this document. However, for the package " Microsoft.Net.Core.SDK.MSBuildExtensions" , it seems a package which the component package depends on or in a sdk. So we can't locate accurately which component the package belongs to because not only one component or workload depends on it.

As the picture below: We can find the workloads and components which depend on it by the log .

Where else could I find the source of that package?

In the log, you can check if there has a download url for you to manually install it. And I find a download url( for version=15.9.28307.272 ) : https://download.visualstudio.microsoft.com/download/pr/b78321cf-2968-49be-a845-fb99347d436e/f938871be0a92ffda7bf6bb1f8c2015f/payload.vsix Hope it helps.

Where do I find, what's included in eg Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NetWeb?

You can find them here .