Visual Studio Code (VSCode) - how to update the standalone (.zip) version?
According to my experience (VSCode in a standalone .zip file uncompressed in D:\ using Win7 OS) you just need to download and uncompress the archive containing the new version (v 1.41.1).
When you run Code.exe in the new folder, your settings file is used and everithing is OK. (then, when you are really really sure that it is everithing OK, you could delete the old version).
If you changed the default settings file location, take a look at https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/settings#_settings-file-locations
According to the special portable page all the settings, plugins, etc. of the standalone version
are stored in the data-folder. So assuming you called your vscode-folder vscode:
- download the new version
- unpack to vscode2 folder adjacent to current vscode
- move data folder from vscode to vscode2
- delete old vscode-folder
- rename vscode2 to vscode
- done
P.S.: Current portable versions notify about new version, but clicking on it leads to download, so above list still applies.
Edit 2020/08/04: To make a "normal" install portable one just needs to create the data folder inside the installation/unpack directory of VSC.
From the official doc it says when downloaded through zip file, one has download the release manually for each update and place the unzip version inside the Program files (Windows).