Future Roadmap Inquiry: EIM, VS Code Extension, and Windows Installer for ESP-IDF Installation Methods

[wulu01]

Hello everyone,

We’re developing a beginner-focused ESP-IDF tutorial and would like to understand the official roadmap for installation methods so our content remains current and forward-looking. Our tutorial is centered on VS Code development, and we’ve noted three mainstream installation options:

- VS Code extension’s built-in installer: According to the v2.0.0 milestone on GitHub (https://github.com/espressif/vscode-esp ... lestone/30), this release plans to transition to EIM and deprecate the current installer. Although the milestone originally targeted June 30, 2025, it has not been released yet. We tried the preview build but were unable to complete the ESP-IDF installation.
- ESP-IDF Installation Manager (EIM): The official workshop (https://developer.espressif.com/worksho ... nment-1-1/) states that EIM “will soon become the standard way to manage ESP-IDF,” but that note was posted about two months ago.
- ESP-IDF Windows Installer(https://dl.espressif.cn/dl/esp-idf/): This can be used to install ESP-IDF separately and then configure it in the VS Code extension .

Our key questions:
- When will EIM officially replace the VS Code extension’s built-in installation wizard?
- What is the future role of the traditional Windows Installer? Will it be discontinued, or maintained as an alternative?

Because our tutorial includes video content that is hard to change once produced, we want to choose an installation method that won’t become outdated quickly. Is there a clear timeline we can reference? If the new method will be released soon, we’re happy to wait and recommend the latest approach in our tutorial.

Thank you in advance for any clarification.

[FabricioESP]

Hi, thank you for reaching out to us.

We are working towards migrating all installation methods to the ESP-IDF Installation Manager (EIM). The timeline where each installation method will be discontinued is not defined, but we are encouraging our users to migrate to this method.
The main challenges resides on the very heterogeneous environments where ESP-IDF can be installed, and we want to make sure we have collected enough feedback from users before fully switching to EIM.

You mentioned that you tried the preview build on VSCode extension and was not able to complete the installation, this is the type of details we are looking for, to make sure we offer the best experience to our users.

To your specific questions:
- ESP-IDF Installation manager is already available and we should release the VSCode extension 2.0 as soon as all documentation is updated and, if we do not face any critical bugs on internal tests or reported from users testing our preview-release. Unfortunately I cannot provide a hard date, but sooner then later.
- On the recent release of the ESP-IDF Installation Manager we have included support for offline installation, which was a major feature of the windows installer. The plan is to fully switch to EIM, but the timeline has yet to be defined.

We appreciate your intent to promote the latest approach and updated information to the users. In that case we strongly recommend using EIM for your tutorials.
As a request, if you find any troubles using EIM or the VSCode extension 2.x please reach out to us, directly to the Github issue report for each project, to make sure we can address your concerns as soon as possible and improve our products for all users (links below).
https://github.com/espressif/vscode-esp ... ion/issues
https://github.com/espressif/idf-im-ui/issues

Kind regards,
Fabricio

[wulu01]

Hi Fabricio,

Thank you for the clear update. We’ll align our beginner tutorial with EIM (including the offline install workflow) and will test the VS Code extension 2.x preview, reporting any issues via the GitHub repos you shared.

We’re looking forward to the official releases of EIM and the VS Code extension 2.0.

Thanks again for your support.

Best regards,
Wulu