> The latest release of the Salesforce Extensions for VS Code and the
> Salesforce CLI added a preview of basic support for developing against
> non-scratch orgs. This means you can now use VS Code with your
> package.xml file against Scratch Orgs, Developer Edition Orgs, etc.

You will need to install the preview release of the Salesforce CLI and enable the preview features in VS Code. You can do this by running the following commands:

     sfdx plugins:install salesforcedx@pre-release

Next you need to enable the feature in VS Code.

To open your user and workspace settings, use the following VS Code menu command:

- On Windows/Linux - File > Preferences > Settings
- On macOS - Code > Preferences > Settings

Set the following setting in your user settings:

     "salesforcedx-vscode-core.change_set_based_tools.enabled": true

Close and open VS Code and create a project. 

To create a project with a manifest run from the command palette:

     SFDX: Create Project with Manifest

Alternatively, you can use the CLI to create the project:

     sfdx force:project:create --projectname myproject --manifest
     cd mychangeset
     code .

Change a setting to force the commands to work against API version 43:

     sfdx force:config:set apiVersion=43.0

Authorize the org via the command palette: 

     SFDX: Authorize an Org

The new project you created came with a default manifest file located at:

> manifest/package.xml

Right-click this file and select the command 

     SFDX: Retrieve Source from Org

Reference:

-  [Develop Against Any Org in Visual Studio Code
](https://github.com/forcedotcom/salesforcedx-vscode/wiki/Develop-Against-Any-Org-in-Visual-Studio-Code)