Want to develop in VS2019 for F&O? Let's take a look!

We're going to take a look at using the Dynamics 365 extension in VS2019 and just see what happens. This is an update to Adria Ariste's article on this subject. We'll be leaning on that article a bit. We'll also be covering a cloud and the environment VHD so we'll be jumping around a bit. First, get VS2019 installed as described in Adria's article.

Environment Image

First, we'll need to location the VSIX so we can install it. If you are using the 10.0.13 image as is, you'll need to find it. Use this PowerShell script to find it.

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\ -Filter *DynamicsRainierVSTools* -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

You'll get some outpot like this. You want the VSIX in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages\DynamicsRainierVSTools-52924ab1-c4fa-47fc-a90d-a5d1e69986bb,version=7.0.5746.35600. If you have installed a PU above 10.0.13 (PU37), then use this script with the path being where you unzipped the deployable package.

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Temp\10.0.605.10014_Application -Filter *.VSIX -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

Once you find it, just run it - payload.vsix. This is what it looked like in my Environment VHD.

And that's it. When I open it as admin, I get no errors, or anything similar. it just appears to work. I had to go to extensions > Customize Menu then uncheck Dynamics 365 to get it added to the menu bar. After that, it looks pretty much like 2017. Let's run a few tests.

Be sure to review Denis Trunin's article on preparing your Environment VHD. We have the same issues in 2019 if not addressed. But otherwise, no real surprises. It just seems to work

Cloud Hosted Environment

It's the same basic process as the environment image. If you haven't done a deployment to your environment from when it was deployed, use this script to find the tools:

Get-ChildItem -Path c:\ -Filter *DynamicsRainierVSTools* -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

This applies to any base image used. If you've installed any updates from LCS, use this script to find the installer where the path is where you extracted the deployable package (manually in my case):

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Temp\10.0.605.10014_Application -Filter *.VSIX -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

-OR- (paying attend to only look at the newest folder)

Get-ChildItem -Path  K:\DeployablePackages  -Filter *.VSIX -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force

In a cloud hosted VM with an update installed, the above script gave this output. Run *.Installer.VSIX.

But What About D365FO.Tools?

Using my article on this for VS2017, Yes, it works the same for 2019. Same steps and results.