VS Code very slow to install on Windows arm64 due to x86 emulation on the installer
Author: dennisamelingCreated Oct 2, 2026Updated Oct 2, 2026
Labelsnew release
Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes
- VS Code Version: 1.140.0
- OS Version: Windows 11 25H2 arm64
Steps to Reproduce:
- Download VS Code Windows arm64 installer from the VS Code website
- Start the installer
- Notice it takes much longer to install than a x64 machine, because the Inno Setup installer runs as a x86 executable:
x86 emulation on Windows arm64 is much slower than x64 emulation.
Inno Setup introduced a new field called SetupArchitecture=x64 in 7.0.0, which is opt-in and still defaults to SetupArchitecture=x86.
Please update the VS Code installer on Windows to also use SetupArchitecture=x64 on Windows x64 and arm64. Here's a PR of how we did it in Git for Windows for inspiration.
Given that VS Code doesn't seem to support 32-bit Windows anymore, just setting SetupArchitecture=x64 in code.iss should be enough, but I'm not sure if VS Code is already on Inno Setup v7.
Source: microsoft/vscode