How do I use an older version of Visual Studio Code?

Question

The latest version (0.5.0) comes with constant crashes, so I wish to go back to the previous version (0.3.0), which actually worked.

How can I achieve this on a Windows machine? First, I embarrassingly don't know where to actually download the old version, and second, I don't know how to stop it from auto-updating were I to finally manage to download and install it.

Answer 1

From Visual Studio Code FAQ:

You can install a previous release of VS Code by uninstalling your current version and then installing the download provided at the top of a specific release page under Updates.

Note: The link you want is in the body of the page--it is not the download link in the nav-bar.

Answer 2

Allright, this is perhaps not the most ideal solution (not to mention unsupported), but you may try the following.

Assuming you've updated Visual Studio Code forthrough the embeddeda auto-updater:

1. On Windows, start by navigating to %APPDATA% in Explorer
2. Next, browse to: Local\Code

Depending on your machine config, chances are you'll find both the latest and previous assemblies in the app-xxxx subfolders.

Note that the version numbers do not match the assembly versions of VSCode but have another purpose. You can verify which version it is per app-xxx folder by rightlicking on the Code.exe file, selecting properties and looking at the Details tab for the Product version info.

Edit: You can simply execute the older Code.exe version and leave the rest intact. There is no need to delete anything.

Currently, the older versions are still available for download at some places online, but this isn't a supported scenario. Best chances are joining the Insider Updates where you do have this option. It wouldn't hurt to make a feature request out of this, though.

Answer 3

Version 0.5.0 is very stable for me on Windows 8.1. So maybe you should consider whether something else is wrong?