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I am trying to install Visual Studio 2017 Community edition on my Dell laptop running Windows 10 64-bit. I download the community web installer and run the .exe file. The program shows it's extracting some files, then asks for admin permission, which I give yes, and then I only get an icon on the taskbar as shown in the picture below. It does not seem to run or anything. Even opening a second instance comes to the same dead end.
I have also tried offline installation by downloading the files via command prompt. But again after one stage, the process opens this installer.exe file and comes to the same dead end.
I am not sure if I am missing any other installations, or any other supporting libraries are corrupted. I have searched in other forums where they suggest the problem occurring due to multiple display setup or dual graphics adapter, but my setup is nothing like that. I have only Intel HD graphics running on my laptop monitor.
I need VS 2017 badly and any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Edit
I was able to run the visual studio installer somehow by changing the setup.exe to run in Windows 8 compatible setting. Now, after installing, if I run the VS 2017 application, I am getting the same kind of problem. I only get an icon on the taskbar, I dont get any VS 2017 Window.
After googling, I found a way to get the log file when the application starts. The xml document indicates 4 errors on startup. Looks like some components are unable to be loaded. I have no idea why. I am attaching the screenshot here of the log file showing the 4 errors. The entire log file - VS 2017 log file
I solved this problem of mine by re-installing the windows. I don't know what was the root cause of the problem earlier but I had other features like VPN not working properly in my OS so I figured that its high time I do it.
I downloaded the full ISO for Visual Studio Ultimate CTP 6. The installation program got to about the 90% mark, gauging by the progress bar, and just stuck there. There was frequent activity from Superfetch, Anti-malware protection, and other background processes, but the progress bar was dead still. Eventually the background task activity subsided after 20 minutes, but the progress bar still wouldn't budge.
CHEAP TRICK: Open a notepad window and position the left edge of it so it perfectly marks the current position of the progress bar. If it the progress bar doesn't move past the left edge of the notepad window in about an hour, it's probably stuck.
This was a case of one of the sub-installers getting stuck during the install and never completing. Unfortunately when this happens, it looks like the master installer never times out the operation. The trick is to open up the Task Manager in detail mode, and look for a sub-installer process that is showing 0% CPU usage and 0% disk usage, indicating it has died. Then just kill that process and the master installation will resume. In my case, the name of the sub-installer was SecondaryInstaller.exe and according to the installation log it happened while it was trying to install some Android SDK components for the cross platform development modules. It had frozen permanently. I killed it and the master installer completed. When I ran Visual Studio it was fine, although I'm guessing I'll have to do some digging on the Android components install problem.
I temporarily disabled my antivirus (AVG) and restarted the install. That fixed it.
The current version of AVG Free antivirus is incompatible with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015.
It does not allow Visual Studio to be installed on the computer. It gets stuck at "Creating restore point". Visual Studio installs perfectly when AVG is turned off.
Any code compiled in "Release" mode targeting x86 platform/environment (in project properties) does not compile. It compiles successfully when AVG is turned off.
I posted the issues in AVG support forum but no one responded.
Same thing happened to me, and I also tried to terminate secondary process from task manager. Do not do that. It is not a solution, but rather a hack which may cause issues later. In my case, I was not even able to uninstall Visual Studio. I tried both web installation and ISO, same issue.
Here is how it worked finally. I restored my Windows 7 to earliest restore point as possible, when there was nothing installed, so I was sure that there would be no conflicts between the different tools (Java, Android API, etc.)
I started the installation of Visual Studio 2015 Community Release Candidate at 10 p.m. At 7 a.m., it was working on Android API 19-21. A hour later, it was finally preparing Visual Studio.
This means that all you need to do is to actually wait 8 to 9 hours. Don't terminate the secondary installer at risk of breaking your Visual Studio; just wait.
During the installation if you think it has hung (notably during the "Android SDK Setup"), browse to your %temp% directory and order by "Date modified" (descending), there should be a bunch of log files created by the installer.
The one for the "Android SDK Setup" will be named "AndroidSDK_SI.log" (or similar).
Open the file and got to the end of it (Ctrl+End), this should indicate the progress of the current file that is being downloaded.
i.e: "(80%, 349 KiB/s, 99 seconds left)"
Reopening the file, again going to the end, you should see further indication that the download has progressed (or you could just track the modified timestamp of the file [in minutes]).
i.e: "(99%, 351 KiB/s, 1 seconds left)"
Unfortunately, the installer doesn't indicate this progress (it's running in a separate "Java.exe" process, used by the Android SDK).
This seems like a rather long-winded way to check what's happening but does give an indication that the installer hasn't hung and is doing something, albeit very slowly.
I had the same problem when I tried to install VS 2015 RC from ISO. It got stuck during Android SDK Setup (API Level 19 & 21, System Images). For me the problem was metered Wi-Fi connection. The installer didn't download necessary files.
Turning off the Internet connection resolved the problem. When installation finished, it said that some components were not installed and it will try to download and install them later.
Check if your Windows has pending updates. After the restart, installation worked as expected.
Alright so after hours of googling and failed attempts at solving this including many of the suggestions above, I found a solution I tried on a whim and worked for me.
Attempt to install the program, then, when it gets "stuck", cancel it, but don't uninstall.
Then, go to the control panel, go to programs, go and attempt to uninstall it, select "Repair" instead of Uninstall.
"Repairing" Visual Studio appears to have completely worked and was very quick, under 5 minutes and everything seems to work fine.
This issue is becoming very now, specially for users installing visual studio on windows 10 platform. What Microsoft suggests is disable your anti virus and anti malware programs and always run setup with admin permission.
But in my case I have to do lot more things to get rid of this issue:
1. Disabled AVG realtime protaction
2. Disabled AVG from task manager
3. Remove all the files and folders from system temp folder. (You can open it by typing %temp% and hit enter in run prompt)
4. Run setup again as admin
Here is a complete list of incidents that I faced in this issue (visual studio 2015 installation got stuck)
And how I resolved it
I got stuck during Android SDK Setup (API Level 19 and 21) Turning OFF and ON the Internet connection resolved the issue and the installation completed successfully.
My VS 2015 install hung after hours of downloading. The VS installer window said it was still proceeding, but Windows Resource Monitor indicated there had been no networ, disk, or CPU usage by the vs_community.exe process tree for dozens of minutes. Windows Process Explorer revealed wusa.exe at the bottom of this tree (wusa is Windows Update Standalone Installer). Tempted to kill wusa.exe, I instead heeded the warnings in other answers to this question.
After studying other answers here (strongly recommended), I made an educated guess and initiated a restart of my Windows 7 Pro. The restart hung because vs_community.exe would not exit. I therefore selected Cancel on Windows' restart popup.
Windows returned to my user session, and now the VS 2015 install came to life(!) Process Explorer revealed wusa.exe no longer present. I therefore suspect that was the roadblock, but my conscience is clean (I didn't kill wusa.exe, Windows did!)
After awhile the installer displayed the following:
When I clicked Restart Now, Windows restarted to a "Configuring Windows" screen, and completed my VS install.
This solution is a safe mix of killing the sub tasks answer and the waiting answer:
when the installer gets stuck, simply launch the task manager and kill the process
if you attempt to run the app again, it will say that the app installation is not complete
run the installer again, and click on repair
installs fine
When stuck on Visual Studio Preparation:
I killed vs_enterprise.exe with higher PID, Visual Studio threw an error, that "pipe is being closed". Restarted PC & Logged in. Visual Studio started automatically and has completed within 1 minute.
A better approach to find whether one of the subinstallers is blocked is to monitor its Network and Disk I/O activity. Process Explorer from Sysinternals does an excellent job. Android SDK Setup downloads large amounts of data (more than 1GB) and the CPU sits idle waiting for an I/O-bound operation to be completed. Under no circumstances you should attempt to kill any process, or you might risk corrupting your installation of Visual Studio. In the worst case scenario, cancelling and rerunning the setup should help.
Mine froze on the Diagnostic Tools for 3 hours. I tried disabling my firewall and turning off internet among many other attempts to resolve this. In the end the following actions allowed the installer to complete and VS2015 Community edition to launch.
I then opened the latest log file in the %temp% folder, and navigated
to the end of the file.
In the last few log lines there was an entry: "MSI (s) (DC:4C)
[16:28:36:577]: Created Custom Action Server with PID xxxx"
I ended the process with the same PID, and then the installer
continued. I had to do it roughly 3 times in total and then the
installer completed successfully.
All seems to be working OK so far (fingers crossed!!)
For Windows10:
1) Kill VS2015 Process if hung
2) Disable Windows Defender
3) Open VS2015 as Administrator
4) Enable Windows Defender
5) Initial VS2015 startup is complete
I have similar problems, my savior became Windows Safe Mode
STEPS:
Restart Windows in Safe Mode (*run msconfig -> boot -> boot options -> check safe boot -> mode Network)
In Safe Mode:
Enable Windows Installer:
REG ADD "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Network\MSIServer" /VE /T REG_SZ /F /D "Service"
Start Windows Installer service:
net start msiserver
Run Visual Studio Updater / Installer
Restart in normal mode (run msconfig -> boot -> boot options -> uncheck safe boot)
I had an issue with the Visual Studio Update 3 installer getting stuck on the "Features" tab at ther very start of installation...it would show only "Update 2 (installed)" and nothing else, with no way to proceed.
After trying some of the other more complex advice here, it turned out, to my surprise, that all I needed to do was use "Run as Administrator" when kicking off the installer. I was under the impression MSI generally runs with Admin privileges (under the Trusted Installer service) but I suppose the VS bootstrapper in this case does not.
I had the same issue. It would hang immediately, as soon as it said "Applying Microsoft Visual Studio 2015." There was only a small sliver in the progress bar. I even let the install run overnight. There was no disk activity or CPU usage from the installer.
What finally worked was to kill the process in Task Manager and restart the computer. As soon as I rebooted, the installer opened up automatically and completed successfully.
In my case the Graphics Tools Windows feature installation was hanging forever.
I've installed the Optional Windows Feature manually and restarted the setup of VS 2015.
I just installed VS 2015 Enterprise on Windows Server 2012 R2. The install was fast until it reached Update 1 which is past the 90% mark on the progress indicator. At that point, it took about 2 hours to complete. Be patient before you try anything more radical.
Mine got stuck applying the .NET 4.6.1 blah... Turning off the internet and disabling Microsoft Security Essentials Real-time protection got things moving again.
Well, I cant find any SecondaryInstaller.exe to stop in task manager and even I dont have any AV rather then Windows Defender so I found something else..
I stopped windows Update from elevated cmd by writing command net stop muauserv and it worked for me...
The update will Retry again for KB2664825 so run the code again in cmd..(because the service starts automatically)
Keep trying and its done for me...!!
I had the same problem on a different context. After trying to repair, uninstall, and reinstall with no solution, I decided to wipe out all Visual Studio remnant by using TotalUninstaller by follower the steps by steps on the link below:
https://github.com/Microsoft/VisualStudioUninstaller/releases
Once everything is removed, I was able to successfully install the software.
Be aware that TotalUninstaller will remove everything related to Visual Studio 2013 to 2015. Earlier version will still be preserved.
I added this solution in case someone has the exact same problem.
I've got same problem and unfortunately the accepted answer which suggests killing SecondaryInstaller.exe messed up installing the optional items. What I've done is basically opening the task manager and locate SecondaryInstaller.exe and right click and click on Open file location. Then run SecondaryInstaller.exe as an administrator.
In my case UAC was disabled (the infamous regedit trick) and so the installer clearly could not handle it.
You could revert back to UAC for the installer, or simply try launching it as admin, it worked for me.
If you are using windows 10, "Windows defender" might be the reason for blocking. mine is hang while installing "Java SE development"
To disable windows defender during the installation phase:
Open Windows Defender by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button. In the search box, type Defender, and then, in the list of results, click Windows Defender.
Click Settings, and turn off Real-time protection.
I have experienced similar problems with Visual Studio 2015 Update 3.
In my case core issue was corrupted windows installer cache (C:\Windows\Installer)
Here is the line from msi installer log:
MSI (s) (4C:64) [10:40:10:059]: Warning: Local cached package 'C:\WINDOWS\Installer\3442502.msi' is missing.
You should check installation logs if installation cache is corrupted same way.
If it is you should pray for sfc utility to recover system integrity or you would reinstall windows from scratch as corrupted windows installer cache is a complete disaster and a reason to perform clear windows installation immediately.
I had a similar problem. My solution was to switch off the antivirus software (Avast), download the .iso file, mount it (double click in the Windows Explorer on the .iso file), and then run it from the PowerShell with admin rights with the following switches:
.\vs_community.exe /NoWeb /NoRefresh
This way you don't have to go offline or remove your existing installation.
For me it helped to stop the installation service forcefully using task manager. If Visual Studio was installed in Features & Programs then uninstall it, restart computer and try to install it again.
When starting the installation make sure to be have reliable internet connection
My Visual Studio began crashing at start-up. In my search for finding a remedy, I found these two suggestions, but neither worked for me:
Launching Visual Studio while running in safe mode, and
Running repair on Visual Studio.
However, I found that if I logged into a different Windows account, Visual Studio was able to run from that account without crashing.
Here is an error code that that I observed in the crash report:
LCID: 1033
Can anyone provide a solution for returning my Visual Studio to working order?
For me it turned out to be the plugin that GitExtensions installed into Visual Studio 2013.
-- UPDATE: try this before uninstalling GitExtensions
#Enceradeira proposed in the comments to uncheck the Show current branch in Visual Studio option. In GitExtensions, you get there via Tools -> Settings -> Appearance:
-- END OF UPDATE
After uninstalling GitExtensions and reinstalling it with all VS plugin unselected my VS runs smoothly again.
I even put together a blog post about this issue because it bugged me so much.
Since you're able to run with another user login, something may be wrong with your local settings, you can try to reset them: devenv /resetsettings in Start menu -> Run.
Warning: this will restore visual studio to default settings.
In my case VS used to crash on a single solution. I resolved the problem by deleting the respective solutions's user file: SolutionName.suo
My colleague recently experienced a problem with Visual Studio 2013 crashing on start-up. Unfortunately, we found that the approach recommended in the answer by #Arun M did not solve the problem:
devenv.exe /ResetSettings
...however, using a different command line argument did:
devenv.exe /ResetUserData
An easy way to run devenv.exe is via the Visual Studio command prompt; on Windows 10, it can be found here:
Start Button => All Apps => Visual Studio 2013 => Visual Studio Tools =>
VS2013 x86 Native Tools Command Prompt
For more about these command line arguments for devenv.exe, see this answer to this related question: How do I truly reset every setting in Visual Studio 2012?. ⚠ In particular, please note the cautionary statement in that answer about the /ResetUserData command line argument!
Try to run VS as administrator. That's necessary in my case.
If coincident to these Visual Studio crashes you are getting "Heap corruption" (Exception code: 0xc0000005) errors in your Windows Application log (Faulting module name: WindowsCodecs.dll), here is something worth checking into: A faulty WIC component within Expression Blend can cause ALL versions of Visual Studio to crash upon launch, as well as cause Internet Explorer to crash upon visiting many, if not most sites. Even though Microsoft distributes this component, they call it a "non-Microsoft component". As such, a Visual Studio reinstall won't fix this,, an OS reinstall over existing Windows installation won't fix this, and a system file integrity check won't detect it.
If my case, the misbehaving codec was "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Expression\Common\Imaging\4.0.360.0\PSDCodec.dll", and simply unregistering this component got my Visual Studio working again from consistent startup launch crashes.
I post this in hopes this solution to one source of Visual Studio crashing might save others from the $500 Microsoft support incident fee and week of downtime this caused me.
I just changed the windows language in the bottom right to "EN", then started as admin. And it worked, interesting..
I had the very strange phenomenon that both Visual Studio 2010 and 2013 on a Windows 7 machine crashed when run in a remote desktop session, started from a Windows 10 pc. Debugging the crash showed a CultureNotFound exception. It was caused by regional settings on the Windows 10 pc, which could not be translated in something understood by Windows 7. I had language English(Belgium) with an Azerty keyboard. I added and selected English(UK) with an Azerty keyboard and the crashes disappeared. No other programs suffered from this.
For me it was being caused by Web Essentials and I was able to resolve by disabling it, restarting VS, enabling it back , restart again. Works now.
I had a crash on startup (or soon after startup, before opening any solution) occurring in git2-msvstfs.dll, caused by placing a 3GB temp file into a directory within my solution. Deleting the file fixed it.
Once I accidentally pressed a random key combination (maybe something like ctrl+', but I didn’t realize I was holding ctrl down so I forgot what keys I hit by the time I realized something bad had happened) that resulted in VS Professional 2017 15.3.5 crashing within half a minute. After relaunching, I found that VS would be interactive for a few seconds before it would crash within half a minute. It was really too fast for me to try to figure out what I had accidentally activated or for me to disable it before VS would crash. Also, it would even crash if I didn’t open any solution, so I figured it was not something that deleting a .vs (per project/solution Solution Explorer/open files state) folder would fix.
To fix, I followed Arun M’s comment and renamed my %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_3f4d04be folder. You will need to adjust the path for the edition/version of VS that is crashing. On my machine, I think 15.0_3f4d04be is Professional and 15.0_0fed6c59 is VS Community Edition. You’ll probably have to guess based on the folder’s modification timestamp which is probably going to reflect the date you last used that edition of VS.
After renaming the versioned dotfolder, VS launched without crashing. It started with default settings but automatically restored some of my settings through the cloud sync stuff after a minute of running and it even remembered my account information so I didn’t need to sign in.
I did not need to rename my %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VSCommon folder (which Arun M had also suggested).
I had a similar problem, both VS2015 and VS2013 would crash at startup. Tracked it down to an application I installed which put .net 4.7.2 on the system. Once i removed that app, removed .net, and reinstalled .net 4.6, Visual Studio started working again.
I've tried to install Visual C# 2010 Express edition onto my PC, but whenever I try to run it, I get a error message.
Invalid license data. Reinstall is required.
I've already tried reinstalling it, and the message persists.
OS is Vista Home Premium. I already have VC# 2008 Express installed.
I am using Visual Studio 2013 and I have the same issue but it occurs when I try to open a solution that was made using Visual Studio 2010.
The solution for me is to open the solution file (.sln), using notepad and change this line:
[# Visual Studio 2010]
to this:
[# Visual Studio 2013]
I just right-clicked, and opened with Visual Studio XXXX (in my case 2015). Then save it. Done.
I have the same problem with Windows 7 Pro. Have tried everything suggested by the Microsoft people, including uninstalling, cleaning up, reinstalling both from the web installer and the VS2010 Express iso - with the same result every time.
To say it's frustrating is an understatement and the disinterest from Microsoft in fixing what appears to be a common problem (you can find lots of search engine 'hits' for the problem, none for a solution) is quite unbelievable.
Since this is virtually a virgin Win7 install, the only conclusion is that MS have broken their licesing checks again (why check for a license on a free product?).
Edit: Following further investigation I have concluded that the advice given by Microsoft is useless and does not attempt to diagnose the problem. It simply assumes a corrupt installation source. I believe that the problem is in fact corrupt permissions/ownership of registry keys. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Licenses and subkeys needs to be owned by SYSTEM with admins having full access. On my affected system the owner cannot be displayed and no permissions are shown when viewed by admin.
I don't have the definitive fix for this so far, as I cannot adequately edit the permissions for the affected registry keys.
Re-installing Windows is an almost certain fix, but also an extremely drastic one.
I have had this EXACT problem with VS2010 Professional Trial / Evaluation download. I can provide clear and concise steps to reproduce:
Set your system clock ahead by 1 day (oops!)
Install the trial software.
Set your system clock back to the correct date.
Start VS2010, you will receive the vague message indicating "Invalid license data. Reinstall is required."
In my case, the resolution was quite simple - set the clock back ahead to the wrong date. The next day, I was able to set the clock back to the correct date and continue using the product.
Based on other answers to this question, it would appear there are numerous reasons that you could receive this message. This specific issue is most likely to be encountered by someone with a "virgin" install of Windows since it is not so difficult to set the clock incorrectly when setting up a new computer and then fix it later (and if you fix the clock hours after installing the product, it might be hard to put it all together and realize what happened).
Hope this helps someone else.
I had this issue but I was able to resolve this by right clicking and using Run as Administrator. This boots up the program just fine.
This worked for me on Vista. It's based on work-around at MS: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/520110/invalid-license-data-reinstall-is-required
Download subinacl command line tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?FamilyID=e8ba3e56-d8fe-4a91-93cf-ed6985e3927b&displaylang=en
Run these commands:
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Licenses /setowner=everyone
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Licenses /grant=everyone=f
Start VS 2010 Express again and this time it asks for a license key.
(On Windows 7 Home I had to run the above commands twice before they worked correctly)
I got the problem when instelled MS SQL 2012 with IngegrationService, the MS Visual Studio 2010 (Isolated) was installed from sql installer .
This VS returned error: Invalid license data. Reinstall is required.
I've fixed the problem by reinstalling SSDT with MS VS 2012 (Integrated)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/jj650015
I had this problem when installing a new SQL Server 2012 standalone Server.
Cause: When installing SQL Managemnt Tools it will install the VS Shell. It seems like this is all you need but this ist not enough! (it actually shows it will install VS)
Strangly the path and the application are shown in windows put you can't open them without the error.
Fix: You need to also install "SQL Server Data Tools" via Feature Add with the SQL-Server.iso
Hope this helps someone... i took me quite a while.
I get this error only when trying to open older solution files. For instance, I've got VS2013 installed and this error message pops up when I double click on a VS2010 solution file.
Getting rid of it is so simple:
Launch VS2013
Open the old solution file by clicking
"File->Open->Project/Solution..." from the menu (or simply by
pressing Shift+Ctrl+O)
Save the solution with the new format by clicking "File->Save
Solution As..." and overwrite the old file.
It appears that this has been reported as a bug, but has been closed as "Not Reproducible". One suggestiong from the Microsoft supporter is to redownload and reinstall:
Please try downloading the complete ISO from http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-All, mount it as virtual drive. Then execute Visual C# setup from the ISO media and select an option to remove the product. Once the Visual C# has been uninstalled, please try installing it again from the ISO media.
It sounds a bit far fetched to me, but you might want to give it a try.
If that does not help you, I would suggest that you either post a new bug report to Microsoft or vote to reopen the existing one (I am not sure if/how this is possible).
I have faced this problem when installing the Visual studio 2010 - C# express using the local administrator account, then trying to register the application using another account that doesn't have Admin privileges, due to corporate polices this account can’t edit in the Registry by any means, so suddenly that’s how I figured out how to solve this issue I open VS 2010 as a local administrator then entered the registration key, and it is worked , I don’t understand how do that Microsoft itself didn’t mention this solution or even try hard to investigate or solve this issue
I just encountered this problem on a virgin install with a system that has a bad clock battery (when I turn off the power, it resets the date/time. Syncing to time.windows.com again allowed me to run VS2010 successfully.
It was not the clock for me, and all the hours spent re-downloading and reinstalling were a waste of time (except for the last one, of course....).
Also, for some odd reason, just adding Read permissions to the HKCR node using psexec -i -s regedit did not work by itself.
To fix my problem on Windows 7, I made sure (using psexec -i -s regedit) that my login account had full control permission over every node in the registry and that the everyone group had read permission over every node in the registry, and did all of the steps in the following link (rebooting after each step):
http://windows.microsoft.com/troubleshootwindows7sp1
This is probably overkill, but after spending 10+ hours trying to get this working, I am just happy it works... Good luck!
I was stuck for several days with the same problem. Investigating the registry i found several keys in HKCR were i was denied access even as adminstrator. Among these keys were the Licences key. Tried a lot of things to resolve this access problem but could not fix it.
Finally i worked around this problem with a reinstall of Windows 7 - choosing the Upgrade option when prompted to choose between upgrade or a fresh install. Had to reinstall video drivers but all my programs and user accounts survived.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Installing-and-reinstalling-Windows-7
After the upgrade i have access to the HKCR\Licenses again and Visual Studio 2010 starts as expected.
I had this problem and finally got passed it. I tried the solutions above to no effect. (I set my license keys to open permissions, set my clock forward, etc.) After two days I gave up...
In the end, I installed VS 2012 Express, which could handle VS 2010 solutions but could not compile 2010 code (without a COFF error). After finding this article on requiring VS 2010 to be installed to compile 2010 solution in VS 2012, I reinstalled VS 2010 even though I assumed it wouldn't work on its own. I tried opening 2010 anyway and it worked!
Analysis: as per the previous correct note by reece (and the original workaround author), I used ProcessMonitor to see what devenv.exe tries to do and fails.
Unfortunately, it was attempting to read a number of reg keys which were not under the Licenses node (so it wouldn't have been enough to take ownership of the latter with subinacl). Furthermore, even after taking ownership, the affected keys still yielded "ACCESS DENIED". Doing it as Administrator was equally useless. Plus, Visual Studio didn't fall for any date change nonsense either.
Solution - Don't try this at home :D though: I downloaded pstools and ran psexec -i -s regedit to get System privileges, then I changed permissions on the entire HKCR node to allow Everyone to Read (:P what can I say, viva el comandante).
I want to point out that adding "Everyone" to have read permissions on HKEY_Classes_Root did fix this issue for me.
I am not sure exactly what permission is needed, but this "worked for me" ... YMMV
This may also occur if you are trying to invoke an xml file instead of the exe application.
An another solution I have found to work is the one mentioned Mac by over at SuperUser: https://superuser.com/questions/651261/how-do-i-fix-an-invalid-license-data-reinstall-is-required-error-in-visual-s
When simply reinstalling the Visual Studio 2010 shell doesn't work, he points out that installing it through SSMS 2010 can solve the problem:
I was able to resolve my issue without making any manual changes to
the Windows Registry by installing SQL Server Data Tools 2010, which
is also free and includes the Visual Studio 2010 Shell.
You don't have to go through the entire install process. I cancelled the process when it was done installing the shell and it worked our fine.
If you're here from Google and are experiencing this issue with GFI MailEssentials's config export tool, check to make sure you aren't trying to open WebMon.SettingsImporterTool.exe.xml instead of WebMon.SettingsImporterTool.exe
If you have "hide common file extensions" enabled, you will see the .exe but not the .xml
Just happened to me with a new install of Visual Studio 2010 ultimate in a new computer.
This new computer had the internal time correctly set, but the date was set to one day late. I installed Visual Studio 2010 with the incorrect date. Then, I noticed of the incorrect date and changed it by sync'ing with a NTP server, and from that moment Visual Studio 2010 would not work... so I'll have to stop using Visual Studio 2010 until DateTime.Now > installationDate.
I met the same problem yesterday.And I fixed already.
Please follow the steps:
Run setup.exe again; Change or Remove Microsoft Visual Studio 2010;
Upgrade license Key (Enter new license key); Complete.
GOOD LUCK !
To everyone who has internet connection. Don't mingle with your
registry it's just a waste of time. Set your CMOS clock right then
just click on the button that say's "Obtain registry key online" fill
up the form(two fields are only required) then the registry key would
show up to your screen then just copy and paste it. then everything
works fine. sorry I can't post any images I still need to earn more points...
Background: Visual Studio 2012 Pro installed by Administrator account.
As "Joe User" (member of Win 7 Users group, but NOT Adminstrators) I got the error message.
On reading this forum I concluded this is a generic error message.
Steps to fix:
As an adminstrator, open HK_CLASSES_ROOT.
Open context menu on the Licenses subkey
Select Permissions...
Set Full Control for all users.
Now log on as "Joe" again.
Voila!
Next, as Administrator change the permission on HKCR/Licenses back to read only for Users.
Two hints for developers.
If you can develop and run an application as an ordinary user, then presumably your poor
clients don't need admin rights to run it either.
Don't leak security information in "helpful" error messages. Microsloth are probably following their own advise and giving a vague and unhelpful error message here.
I have no idea why changing the permission to FC then back again to the original setting worked. I can only assume the Visual Studio writes something to that key the first time it runs.
While none of the above solution worked for me (else than running the application with an other username),Renaming the application folder in %appdata% fixed the porblem for me.
"C:\Users...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\MS Project"
I had this issue while installing dynamic ax setup in VM, while installing it was showing me to 'licence is not valid, Reinstall visual studio shell 2010 version', so i uninstalled the visual studio shell 2010 version and its following component and tried to install again the AX admin it worked.
I'm having this problem with Visual Studio 2015 installed.
ramonsantana over at forum.unity3d.com had the solution for me: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/if-anyone-is-having-visual-studio-shell-2010-invalid-license-data-reinstall-is-required.298824/
Copied here for reference
Use regedit go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and look for Visual Studio.DTE
Since i have Visual Studio 2015 CTP installed i have 3 DTE, one is
VisualStudio.DTE, the other Visual StudioDTE.10.0 and
VisualStudio.DTE.14.0 Go to VisualStudio.DTE.14.0 ( or whatever
version of Visual studio you have installed) and click CLSID.
Copy the
Default (Double click Default and Copy the key inside), now go back to
Visua Studio.DTE and double click the Default there and paste the key
you just copied.
Almost there
On VisualStudio.DTE go to CurVer and
double click the key there to Edit it. Change the 10.0 in the end to
12.0 or 13.0 or 14.0, depending on what version of Visual Studio you have and you are done.
Installing SQL server data tools for visual studio 2010 did it for me! SSDT has an VS2010 IDE along with it, which overwrites the required registry entries.
You can find SSDT here.
My problem:
VS works fine, but when I create new Solution Setup and Deployment it make Setup file but when I run this Setup file, it say: "Invalid license data. Reinstall is required."
subinacl do not work.
My PC:
OS: Windows 7 64bit.
Visual Studio 2012
My way:
Close Visual Studio
Run regedit.
Pull down HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Looking for Licenses
Right click on Licenses -> click Permissions... -> click Advanced -> click User you want edit -> click Edit -> choose This key and subkey -> check all Allow: Full Control, Query Value, SetValue, Create Subkey, Enumerate Subkeys, Notyfy, Create Link, Delete, Write DAC, Write Owner, Read Control... -> check Apply these permissions to objects... -> click OK -> click OK -> click OK -> Close Registry Edit
Start VS
Hope this help
This was my problem with my Visual Basic Net 2005.
This is how I got it solved:
Click start :-> type run (Or press win+r)
Type regedit
Click HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Click Licenses
Double click (Default)
Clear all text written in Value data field
Press Ok
Run again Microsoft visual studio
Believe it or not, I have found cases where this problem occurred due to a build error when the build error was due to an error in xcopy in the pre-build events.
We had this problem at a colleges computer, and after trying everything here we set to forget it and fix the error from xcopy. When this was fixed the Visual Studio 2010 shell error stopped popping up, for some reason.
Seeing an issue when debugging in Visual Studio. All of the values under watch, and in the hover over window show up incorrectly. the only values that show properly, are values that are local to the method I am currently stepping through.
For example the watch value for 'this' when debugging shows the following under value
0x00000000ffac0388 { btnBack=0x00000000ffaccf20 btnReply=0x00000000ffacd200 btnForward=0x00000000ffacd420...}
some other variables show this, even though the variable is there.
error: 'this.foo' does not exist
The machine recently had windows 7 64 installed, since then this problem has occured.
Visual studio has been reinstalled on this machine, and we verified that the settings in visual studio were exactly the same as a different PC that is the same machine and config.
We finally figured out what the issue was. The devenv.exe was being set to run in xp compatibility mode (sp3). Doing a rebuild of the project after removing the compatibility mode fixed the issue.
Can you provide a bit more information to help us track down this problem. In particular
What operating system was installed before upgrading to Windows 7 64 bit?
Did you install Visual Studio before or after the upgrade?
Is there any other version of Visual Studio installed on the machine?
If you set your application to be x86 specific does the problem still repro?
What language is your code written in (assuming C#)?
When facing weird debugging issues, I find that deleting the solutions User Options file (.suo) usually fixes the problem. You will loose your bookmarks, breakpoints, any special exception handling, and so on.
If that fails then clear all your Visual Studio "temporary" files. Check out the "Clear Recent" script at http://missico.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7178D2C79BA0A7E3!370.entry. Modify it for your own needs. For instance, I dislike Flash, so you may want to remove the call to ClearStupidFlash and the other non-Visual Studio calls. Clear your solution then "rebuild all".
If the problem still exists, then something else is going on.