Visual Studio 2026 Extension Management Configuration

Thanks for reaching out!

Lock down for VS 2026 to use your private feed by scripting the same registry keys that the “Manage Extension Sources” UI writes to. Here’s a sketch of what that looks like:

Identify the right registry hive

• VS 2026 is a 32-bit process, so the keys live under

HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\18.0\ExtensionManager

Push your feed URL into EnabledExtensionSources (REG_MULTI_SZ)

• Name: anything unique (e.g. “01_PrivateRepo”)

• Value: the URL of your internal feed

• Only include your private feed entries here; omitting the Marketplace entry effectively hides it

Explicitly disable Marketplace by populating DisabledExtensionSources

• Add the Marketplace feed’s description to DisabledExtensionSources

Roll this out in your GPO as a Registry Preference targeting the above keys

• You can also drop a .pkgdef in

%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2026\Common7\IDE\Extensions\

that mirrors those registry settings if you prefer PKGDEF over direct registry edits

Sample .pkgdef snippet :

[$RootKey$\ExtensionManager\EnabledExtensionSources]

"01_PrivateRepo"="https://mycompany/vsixfeed"

[$RootKey$\ExtensionManager\DisabledExtensionSources]

"01_Marketplace"="Visual Studio Marketplace"

Once that registry or .pkgdef is in place, restart VS 2026 and check Extensions go to Manage Extensions, next click Gear icon → “Manage Extension Sources” to confirm only your private feed appears.