Windows – How to install a VSIX file in Visual Studio

From my experience changing the installation path of Visual Studio is possible but may cause a lot of problems later. I would not try to change the location Microsoft where thinks an installation have to be. Instead I would use the NTFS soft link feature and pretend that Visual Studio and some of the other components are installed on C:\Program Files\... where as in reality they are located on the RAM drive:

1. Format your RAM disk with NTFS (if it is not already in this format)
2. Copy the directories you would like to mirror to RAM onto the RAM drive (better use command line, not Explorer) - the exact target path on the RAM drive does not matter
3. rename the original directory in your Program Files directory (e.g. "Visual Studio" to "Visual Studio_".
4. Create a symbolic link from C:\Program Files\Visual Studio to your ram drive (R: in this example):

mklink /D "C:\Program Files\Visual Studio" "R:\Visual Studio"

Now your Visual Studio installation on the C-Drive points to your RAM-Drive. And the best is that you can automate the whole process via a batch script.

Make sure assembly binding logging is disabled. It's easy to forget to turn it off after enabling it while debugging something, and it can slow down installing VS significantly.

This SO answer has details on running the log viewer and changing the settings.