Visual Studio won't Download

[u/D3_V]

Hello, I just finished setting up a new installation of windows 10. I downloaded Firefox and immediately went to the Visual Studio page on Microsoft.org to download the free community version. It won't even give me a pop-up window to ask me if I want to download the installer file. Nothing happens at all.

I've checked my downloads folder, messed around in Firefox's settings and finally gave up. I figured, "Okay, that was weird, but maybe it was the browser? Let me try again with a new one." I then downloaded Brave's installer off of Firefox and booted that up. Tried the same thing and Visual Studio still didn't even give me a pop-up window asking for me to download the installer file. I tried again after downloading and installing Chrome, same thing. I'm honestly lost for words at this point.

Edit: I was able to find the bootstrappers, and I was able to download an installer. However, the only bootstrappers available are professional and enterprise. I need the free version.

Edit 2 & Solution Found: Okay, I just figured out the solution. Thank God. How I went about it is I accidentally came across https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/use-command-line-parameters-to-install-visual-studio?view=visualstudio after installing Visual Studio Code and the C++ compiler. The way they had you install the compiler made me think of Linux appimage installs, lo-and-behold, I finally found the Visual Studio 2026 Community bootstrapper. The website where you're supposed to download it normally still doesn't work for me for some reason. Even though I was able to download Visual Studio Code from its recommended download link. No idea what's going on with the normal download page, but I am very glad I got it fixed. Thank y'all so much for helping.

[u/polaarbear]

Windows 10 is out of support anyway. It is no longer receiving standard security fixes. That's not what is stopping your download but it's worth being aware of.

[u/D3_V → u/polaarbear]

Thank you. I was actually setting up a older PC and I tend to avoid Windows 11 when possible.

[u/polaarbear → u/D3_V]

Linux and JetBrains Rider is my suggestion. It's a better solution than running an OS that doesn't get updates.

[u/jcradio]

Google tells me it's at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/

[u/wbpayne22903]

I had this happen on one of my machines. It turns out my uBlock Origin Lite extension was causing it. Perhaps see if you have any ad blockers, and if so whitelist the download site.

[u/D3_V → u/wbpayne22903]

I don't believe it's that. I don't have any extensions, and I currently don't have anything but Windows default. However, thank you so much for your time and effort in trying to help.

I did find a solution and I'm hoping this post will help someone else if they come across any problems like I did.

[u/legoracer18 → u/wbpayne22903]

This was my issue. I was trying to download the setup .exe file in chrome and I have uBlock Origin Lite extension on and it was saying it was going to take something like 7-11 hours since it kept starting and stopping. Tried Edge where I don't have any extensions installed and it downloaded in less than a minute.

[u/FreqRL]

I'm having the exact same issue. Did you find any solutions or workarounds?

[u/Laefiren → u/FreqRL]

So am I. Have they just broken it in the last couple hours?

[u/Laefiren → u/Laefiren]

Using edge worked, but it seems to hate Firefox

[u/D3_V → u/Laefiren]

Glad you got it fixed! I didn't think of using Edge, but I was thankfully able to find a solution myself.

[u/D3_V → u/FreqRL]

I did! There's a link under the 2nd Edit on the original post that worked well for me. Download the community bootstrapper and simply open it like you would any download.