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Env: Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition on Windows 8
Trying to open Tools --> Extensions and Updates results in the following error in a message box:
Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
Parameter name: index
Tried running as Admin, same result.
I've tried looking at the log but nothing mentions that error.
In the log there are 3 error entries related to extensions which could be related, they say the following:
Error loading extension: Could not find a part of the path 'C:\path\to\APPDATA\LOCAL\MICROSOFT\VISUALSTUDIO\14.0\EXTENSIONS\ZW2UF5JV.JVN\extension.vsixmanifest'.
The other 2 are identical except the odd string at the end is HQ1Y5EQD.TMG and 3KWE1LJF.Z1W.
Interestingly, just before those errors in the log appear, there is a line for each saying the extension was loaded successfully but if I try to go to the path it's got listed, it doesn't exist.
I can't find any reference to those strings on my machine. I've also searched the registry but can't find any reference in there either.
I can get into the Extensions manager if I click on one of the update notifications but the original error message just displays in the main pane and I can't do anything else. I can get to the online window but as soon as I click an extension, I am prompted with the original message.
I haven't installed any extensions or VS updates for a while but my Web Compiler extension extension has stopped auto compiling JSX files which is why I started trying to look at the Extension manager. I'm guessing the issues are related.
I can still work, compiling can be done manually which is inconvenient but not the end of the world. My worry is some other extensions are also misbehaving and I just haven't noticed yet.
Don't really want to re-install VS as a) it took ages last time and b) it might not fix the issue. Is there any good advice on troubleshooting the error or anything else I can try before I re-install?
I refreshed the GitHub extension on VS 2015 and got this error. Deleting the two cache files:
extensions.en-US.cache
extensionSdks.en-US.cache
from the AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\Extensions causes them to be rebuilt and eliminates the error.
No reinstall needed.
Problem got worse, I started getting the error message when starting Visual Studio and things like the package manager wouldn't load. Each restart seemed to yield a different combination of windows not loading, sometimes Solution Explorer, sometimes Team Explorer etc. Not good.
A repair to VS 2015 via the Control Panel took a while but didn't help, same problems.
I ended up completely uninstalling and trying to re-install. However the installer threw an index was out of range error but weirdly VS 2015 was now listed as an installed application again.
So I'm guessing the original uninstall left some problematic files lying around which messed up the next install. So I uninstalled again, renamed Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0 folder, cleared all files from AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\Extensions and re-installed.
It installed and ran fine.
The problem I now had was that I couldn't find the SQL Server Object Explorer window anywhere. I tried repairing SQL Server Data Tools but still no luck. So I uninstalled SSDT and then re-installed. This seemed to fix it.
Now I realised I also couldn't connect to Azure through the Server Explorer window, the option was simply not appearing in the list like it used to. This time a repair to Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 - v2.9 and a repair to Azure App Service Tools v2.9 - Visual Studio 2015 fixed that problem.
I confronted same issue and found this thread. I tried the above suggestions, but unfortunately, it went all unsuccessful. I even tried to uninstall/install with even worse result as Visual Studio became unable to start due to new "missing components" issue. Reinstallation was nothing better.
I finally came by a piece of magic. It was Visual Studio Uninstaller which although would remove all your installed extensions, it would perform a complete cleanup. It would save you from installing new Windows (at least it was my case.
Just go to releases and download the first zip file
This way you will be able to perform clean install of Visual Studio.
Now I have some big problems with installing Visual Studio Community.
These problems came when I got back to Windows 7 from Win10 (because I had some problems).
When I launched the actual Visual Studio for the first time on Win7, it loaded good, but I didn't have any templates. So I decided to reinstall it.
Uninstall went good, but when I tried to install it again, it just stopped at Microsoft Visual Studio Hub Services or something like that. It just really stopped, when I let it go, the progress bar never moved. Then it also said that it couldn't find it or something similar.
And then the fun starts. I tried to do it several times, same. Then I downloaded the Visual Studio 2013 Community, and it stopped on Build x86. Same like the Hub Services at the 2015 version. I gave up at this moment. But after that, I went angry and removed the all Visual Studio folders in the Program Files.
But later on, I found the Visual Studio 2015 Express for Desktop, I downloaded it and that time it said right at the beginning: A Prerelease version of Visual Studio Community is currently installed. Please uninstall it prior to proceeding with your current installation.
I listened to it, went to Remove and Add Programs thing (don't know what name is it in english) and yeah, there was a version of that Visual Studio I removed. I tried to uninstall it, but it just said something again: The installation source for this product is not available. Make sure that the source exists and that you can access it.. And that's basically all.
So I would like to ask, how to fix this thing. It's because of that movement from Win10 to Win7? Or because of the VS folder deletement in Program Files? Any answers are very welcome!
EDIT: Main problem is that it stops at Microsoft Visual Studio Hub Services, I managed to uninstall the 2015 Community version, but then it stops and just didn't move, the only way was to remove the process to shut down the installing window and cancel the installing.
EDIT 2: Well, kinda shy of my grammar back then, fixed some bigger mistakes.
When Visual studio is installed, several other programs get installed. So when you try to uninstall visual studio, you should uninstall all other bunch of programs which were installed along with actual visual studio(which is a bit burden). It take so much time for me to uninstall all the programs from my computer. So while re installing please make sure you uninstall all the other installed apps also.
[EDIT: you may want to scroll to the bottom for the nuclear option which I wish I'd discovered earlier!]
I've downgraded two computers from Windows 10 to 7, both with VS2015 on them. One worked and the other had its VS2015 break horribly. I also deleted the VS2015 directory and registry data that mentioned VS2015 and all sorts, and I had even more problems than you describe :) I think the difference is that I installed some new things (node.js and TypeScript) under Windows 10, and they inserted things into VS2015 which were no longer properly installed after the downgrade.
Here are my discoveries in a hopefully useful order:
When it hangs, what it's actually doing is trying to display this prompt asking you to supply the path to an installer it couldn't find.
You usually get to see these prompts if you 'Run as Administrator' the (main) installer (rather than letting it obtain Administrator privileges itself). Process Explorer helps shed light on this: if the main installer's window is associated with the child process, then the dialogues are visible. If the root process, they're not.
The prompt relates to old versions of packages that the installer wants to uninstall prior to installing a new one, and for some reason the installer doesn't know how to re-download those packages. It is usually looking under C:\ProgramData\Package Cache for them.
If you aren't seeing the dialogue, you can view logs in C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Temp. Use the 'Details' view and sort this folder by date modified, to help you find the right one. Each sub-installer tends to make a new file so you may have to poke around a bit. Changing dates or file sizes also tell you that it's doing something.
Messages like this tend to be associated with the attempt to show a dialogue:
MSI (s) (24:D8) [13:00:25:033]: SOURCEMGMT: Trying source C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\{388D7468-1CCA-40C8-9F08-4C20E972E922}v14.0.25123\packages\BuildTools_MSBuildResMsi_amd64\.
MSI (s) (24:D8) [13:00:25:033]: Note: 1: 2203 2: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\{388D7468-1CCA-40C8-9F08-4C20E972E922}v14.0.25123\packages\BuildTools_MSBuildResMsi_amd64\BuildTools_MSBuildResMsi.msi 3: -2147287037
MSI (s) (24:D8) [13:00:25:033]: SOURCEMGMT: Source is invalid due to missing/inaccessible package.
So, what to do about these missing packages?
If you have another computer with a working Visual Studio 2015 installation, you can copy the entirety of Package Cache from there to your bad computer (no need to merge folders that already exist) and that will hopefully catch many of them.
For the rest, I tried a few third-party uninstallers, and Revo Uninstaller helped. Go into its settings and enable 'Show System Components'. Then, whenever you identify a problematic package, you'll usually be able to find it in Revo Uninstaller. If you uninstall it, you'll see the usual prompt (cancel it), and after it fails, Revo's 'Moderate' registry cleanup option does the trick ('Safe' didn't). If you use the Pro version then you can multi-select and use the 'Quick Uninstall' batch option, which isn't quite automated - yes, I'm afraid it will be tedious - but with some patience, you can get through everything.
Identifying the problematic packages is still a manual process, but the good news is that you can cancel many of the prompts during a run of the installer without it aborting, so you can collect a lot of package names as you go. You can also look for patterns in version numbers; for me, a lot of them were 14.0.15123` or something like that.
For me, just one package didn't show up in Revo Uninstaller, and I searched the registry myself and deleted some occurrences. I'm not sure if that or the subsequent install of the new package was what did it, but even that one went away.
So, after all that, I'm pleased to report that Visual Studio 2015 has got through the 'Repair' operation with no further errors. I still need to reboot before I can see if it runs without a hitch...
[EDIT: Nuclear option follows]
It didn't. Many of the standard windows (code editor and error list to name a couple) failed to load with the error "An item with the same key has already been added". On the plus side, at least Visual Studio didn't suddenly exit moments after opening. So that's an improvement and 2-3 days well spent :)
After that:
I found this answer and tried the TotalUninstaller linked therein.
Then I deleted more of the installation where that uninstaller reported it couldn't delete a non-empty directory.
Then I was going to reinstall from scratch, but would you believe it - it gave me Modify/Repair/Uninstall options! So I ran the Uninstall. (Maybe Repair would have worked, who knows?)
Then I reinstalled from scratch.
There was just one more failed uninstall of an old thing (Microsoft Web Deploy), but it didn't even report a warning at the end because of it, and now my Visual Studio finally seems to be intact - fingers crossed! (I may never test that web deploy thing anyway - I mainly use it with Unity. Of course I had to install the Unity tools again.)
So yeah. I have no idea if this works by itself or if you also have to do all the other stuff. If you try it and find out, let us know.
Since you are still seeing Visual Studio in Remove and Add Programs, your environment may not be entirely clean and you will have to first completely remove Visual Studio from the system. This should be independent of whether you're using Windows 7 or 10.
You may need to do further research, but here are some initial pointers:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/Aa983433(v=VS.90).aspx
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/mats/program_install_and_uninstall
Beyond trying those things and then re-attempting the install, please look for any logs generated from the failures. For example, in your %temp% folder.
In my case , I just restart the PC and after it boots up the VISUAL STUDIO 2015 will automatic come back and keep running. I did it with 2 PCs of users and with version Professional. Hope this helps.
Note : Please make sure to close all VS running on your PC before running install 2015 (in my case is VS Pro 2013) and make sure Windows updates have finished running (if they have).
Uninstall any version of visual studio 2015 you already might have installed.
Then, delete this key: I had a similiar issue and found finally as cause entries under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\14.0. .
When I debugging in VS2013 update3, msvsmon.exe crashed when hit at a breakpoint.
It shows "The debugger's worker process (msvsmon.exe) unexpectedly exited. Debugging will be aborted".
I'm not using remote debug.
Is it possible to shut down the msvsmon.exe to avoid calling it when debugging ?
Deleting all of the breakpoints solves the problem when I hit this error. Disabling the breakpoints was not enough - they had to be deleted.
I was able to attach to a process numerous times. Once I added a conditional breakpoint (with a few checks), I started getting this error when attempting to attach to that same process.
The error provided in the question is one problem. I also received an error stating that a debugger was already attached when I tried again. Either way, deleting breakpoints solved it.
Try turning on Options > Debugging > General > "Use Managed Compatibility Mode"
I got this error/crash too while debugging and trying to inspect a variable with 50 MB of text data in it. This option worked in both VS2013 and in VS2015 to allow me to debug and inspect the variable with large data.
A couple of things that worked for me:
Try Closing VStudio and relaunching.
If not, reboot helps.[I know thats generic, but its worth a shot]
Disable unnecessary break points.
I had this error also, and I too have Astrill installed. Completely uninstalling Astrill fixed the issue.
I reached out to Astrill support, and they answered (within 2 hours) saying the correct fix is to hold Ctrl and press the "Help" button on the Astrill application, and then choose "Uninstall LSP". This has fixed the issue without needing to un-install Astrill.
I don't know what LSP is, but I presume it's some sort of proxy.
In my case, it was caused by a VPN software. It changed my hosts file and my localhost was not 127.0.0.1 anymore.
So check your localhost in the hosts file (e. g. %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) and make sure it is 127.0.0.1.
This error just occurred for me with visual studio 2015 RTM. Deleting all the breakpoints resolved the "The debugger's worker process (msvsmon.exe) unexpectedly exited. Debugging will be aborted" condition.
So If you clear all your breakpoints, in your version, you will not need to avoid using MSVSMON.exe.
I was using the OzCode debugger extension. Unfortunately they don't have a way to completely disable the extension - you can only disable certain features - so I had to completely uninstall it to confirm it was what was contributing to the crashes.
I got the same error. No effect after deleting all breakpoints and repairing Visual Studio (I have 2013 Community Edition). The problem was the Bitdefender software. I have Bitdefender Internet Security 2016 and had set Active Thread Control (Modules->Antivirus) to Normal level. But after setting this settings to Permissive the error doesn't show up anymore.
This error occured to me, when I tried to debug with Visual Studio / Service Pack 3, when Service Pack 4 was already released. After updating to the Service Pack 4 I was able to debug.
So, try installing the newest version of Visual Studio
Regards
This (or something that manifests in exactly the same way) is still an issue in VS2017. In my case it was caused by a dependency being too large to debug. The dependency in question was a generated client for a large REST API. I was able to debug again after slimming down that dependency.
Here's yet another answer: I changed my project from "Platform Target: Any CPU" to "Platform Target: x86". Went from needing about 5 attempts to debug to working every single time.
I had previously tried every suggestion in this thread: I reinstalled, I killed all breakpoints, and looked for fishy software interactions.
I started getting this exact error today in my VS2019 project. Attempting to expand/inspect simple data structs in VS debugger would make it freeze for a minute and then I'd get that "The debugger's worker process (msvsmon.exe) unexpectedly exited. Debugging will be aborted" message:
If I add msvsmon.exe process to windows defender exclusions list, then the problem disappears.
I hit this in Visual Studio 2019 (16.4.3) (C++) with a cause that I have not seen mentioned: I had accidentally added a Watch with incorrect syntax that was attempting to instantiate a singleton rather than returning the existing instance.
Repeatedly choosing right click > Clear All in the Watches view while debugging fixed the issue.
Fixed by changing Options->Projects and Solutions->Web Projects -> Use 64bit version of IIS......... to False.
In my case i am using the wcf Service on the wpf application and inputting parameters from here.The Wpf Application Execution on Facing this error "The debugger's worker process (msvsmon.exe) unexpectedly exited. Debugging will be aborted".
That case i am hosing the Wcf service and run the wpf application exe
In this type of Execution on I didn't Facing any Error like -- "The debugger's worker process (msvsmon.exe) unexpectedly exited. Debugging will be aborted"
please,try this proceed error solved because some execution process didn't supporting the debugging..... we are removing the Debuggers on also we face same error.
that case on helped this process.......
I just experience this with VC2017 Community Edition 15.7.2. Turning off the Microsoft Symbol Server lookup while debugging fixed it for me.
I've just had the problem in VS 2015. I hadn't noticed that one of my breakpoints was bogus - I had inadvertently pressed F9 to set a breakpoint when the disassembly window was showing in the previous debugging session. The solution was simply to delete that one bogus breakpoint - I got to keep all my others.
I tried almost every answer in here, but for my case, nothing worked.
Switching to 32-bit just made Visual Studio 2019 crash instead of msvsmon.exe crashing.
What did work for me is to set a very early breakpoint and use that opportunity to close the "Parallel Stacks" window. I didn't need that anyway, but it was open by default in my layout.
In my case, I had this error when I had the "Locals" tab opened during debugging and hitting a breakpoint. For some reason VS might've been unable to display one of the local variables. The error disappeared when switched to a different tab before hitting the breakpoint where the error was occurring.
My problems started after moving a project to a new folder. I wasn't having any luck with any of these answers using VS2019. I even deleted the entire .vs folder thinking maybe something got corrupted. No luck.
But on a whim I tried starting the project with CTRL-F5 instead of just F5 and that actually worked. It's consistent. CTRL-F5 runs fine. F5 gives me the msvsmon.exe error.
I have no idea what's going on, but at least I can get the project to run again.
This problem is at least 1 1/2 years old maybe more. Today is 6-11-22 and I have the problem in Ms Studio Pro 2022 with a fresh install of windows 11 not much of anything else in the computer. Then I uninstalled it and install Ms Studio Community 2022 put in 1 breakpoint at the beginning and I got the error.
Today 6-12-22 I reinstall Ms Studio Community 2022. For some reason I switch from x86 to x64 went through a about 1000 changes of errors and a crashed form1.resx file thank goodness for a backup I had or I'd be done again. anyways so far have several break points with no problems.
I deleted all my watch variables. That fixed the problem for me.
I know it doesn't directly address the error, but as a workaround, I'm using the Rider IDE from JetBrains, and am not encountering the error (code, system, etc. the same).
Visual Studio version: Professional 2017, 15.5.4
Rider version: 2017.3
None of the other answers worked for me, when I encountered this error. If you are not actually remotely debugging, you can use another editor until you figure out the problem or it resolves itself (the latter was the case for me).
So, I was using Visual Studio 2013, it crashed, and when I restarted it the Search Solution Explorer had stopped functioning correctly:
It fails to find any file if you type in the exact file name
It fails to find any static files e.g. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
It fails to find any configuration files e.g. Web.config
It seems to still find some files on a partial match, but not all files that you'd expect it to match e.g. if I search for Account I'd expect it to find AccountController.cs and AccountControllerTest.cs but it only finds the latter.
Some further info:
If I start VS 2013 in safe mode Search Solution Explorer works fine without any problems
If I manually disable or uninstall the extensions I'm using and start VS normally, the problem with Search Solution Explorer reappears
Has anyone come across anything similar to this, or got any suggestions of what to try to get Search Solution Explorer working again?
Update
I've had some joy running devenv /ResetSkipPkgs and devenv /ResetSettings. After a I ran those command Search Solution Explorer started working again, and works most of the time now. It still fails occasionally. Sometimes restarting Visual Studio will get it working again, but sometimes it just plain refuses to find certain files that are there.
Update 2
I installed Visual Studio 2013 Update 2, and Search Solution Explorer ran without any problems for just over a week before this problem reappeared. Restarting Visual Studio got Search Solution Explorer working again.
I was able to narrow this down to the extensions I was using, "Productivity Power Tools 2013" seems to break the search feature for me in IIS, so I've disabled it for now. I'm getting a full set of results when searching now.
I came to this conclusion by uninstalling all of my extensions and reinstalling them one by one until the problem reappeared.
A coworker also had some success with this solution, launching DevEnv.exe with /ResetSkipPkgs
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms241276.aspx
Update
The problem returned for me after about 30 minutes, no specific cause noted. It was nice while it lasted. Removing all extensions gets me the same behavior as OP, only running in safe mode appears to work.
Deleting the .suo file also seems to fix the problem for a while, and then it comes back. I'm about to resort to a reinstall of vs2012 just to get this search feature back.
Please try to install VS2013 update 2 CTP before reinstalling everything and see if it fix the bug:
Weird that it works in Safe Mode, or that you manage to fix by removing extensiosn and it then re-appears...
but if some of your projects are in solution folders, then there is a known bug, fixed but not released yet apparently:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/801836/solution-explorer-doesnt-search-files-projects-inside-solution-folders
I have the same issue and confirmed it related to VS2013 Update 2 RC. Uninstall it will fixed this issue.
Wait for GM version of VS 2013 update 2.
I still had this issue both prior to and after installing VS update 3. I should note that it went away after I installed that for a while, and then came back. I suspect (but cannot confirm) that the broken behavior's return coincided with a lockup of my system which necessitated a reboot...
Anyway, I had the Productivity Power Tools installed, and after reading the answers here wondered if it might be complicit, and so I went to disable it and noticed it had a pending update. I went ahead and updated the add-on, and that resolved the issue for me (again). We'll see if it stays fixed.
This may caused by other extensions you have installed in your visual studio. I have some issue, found out Telerik JustTrace caused this issue.
Running devenv /ResetSkipPkgs will fix the problem but, as noted, it will return. For a permanent solution, add this parameter to the target in the exe's properties:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" -ResetSkipPkgs
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.