Integrated Shell and Isolated Shell
You can create your own Visual Studio-based application in either integrated or isolated mode. In integrated mode, many Visual Studio features are available in addition to your application. In the isolated mode, you choose a subset of Visual Studio features that you wish to distribute along with your own extension.
Integrated Mode
Integrated mode enables your users to use standard Visual Studio features along with your custom tools. The integrated shell is intended primarily for hosting programming languages and software development tools.
Custom tools that are built on the integrated shell automatically merge with any other edition of Visual Studio that is installed on the same computer. You can provide a redistributable version of the Visual Studio integrated shell if Visual Studio is not already installed.
The redistributable version of the Visual Studio integrated shell does not include programming languages and the features that support their respective project systems.
Note
The Visual Studio shell integrated mode can be installed together with all editions of Visual Studio except the Express editions.
For more information, see Visual Studio Integrated Shell.
Isolated Mode
Isolated mode allows you to create custom tools that run side-by-side with other versions of Visual Studio. It is intended primarily for tools that can access Visual Studio services without depending on all the standard Visual Studio features. You can customize the appearance of applications built on the Visual Studio isolated shell. You can easily turn off the features and menu command groups that you do not wish to appear together with your application.
For more information, see Visual Studio Isolated Shell.
Distributing your Integrated or Isolated Shell Application
In order to distribute your integrated or isolated shell application, you need to include your application, a special integrated or isolated shell redistributable, and an installation program. For more information about distribution and installation, see Distributing Integrated and Isolated Shell Applications.
Additional Resources
For more information about redistributable packages, see the Visual Studio Extensibility Downloads Web site.