I'm getting the following error when opening VS 2017 on Windows 7 64-bit:
Package management initialization failed: Access Denied.
You can get more information by examining the file:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.<version>\ActivityLog.xml
It all started after I added my solution to SVN. I had no problems until I tried to add a file and got the following error:
Value does not fall within the expected range
I followed the steps mentioned in this answer and did a 'devenv /setup', after that I started getting the Package management initialization failed: Access Denied. error when opening VS. Now Visual Studio doesn't even start.
Has anyone else experienced this problem and resolved it?
Edit:
I tried starting as an administrator and it worked. But otherwise it doesn't.
It turns out that this is a bug, that hasn't yet been resolved. This error also occurs when starting Visual Studio after an update.
But there is a workaround from this thread that worked for me,
Delete the privateregistry.bin file from the following folder:
C:\users\%username%\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_<version id>\
This is however a temporary fix and resets the user's preferences. That's why it worked when I started it as an administrator, since the problem is user specific.
Update
This bug is supposedly fixed in the latest versions of Visual Studio. But for the bug fix to work, the old privateregistry.bin file still needs to be deleted.
#Xpleria, the answer works fine. To open the AppData folder, you can type:
%AppData%
directly in the Address bar.
https://support.pointlogic.com/faq/troubleshooting/accessing-the-appdata-folder
I had this issue after installing SSDT for VS 2017 in a new vs instance.
So it's like I have two visual studio in my machine.
To fix that, I uninstalled the SSDT package, restart my machine and reinstall it on the initial installed visual studio instance.
I had the same problem and when I looked at
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio
I noticed that I had miltiple versions of visual studio meaning the current update might not have been successfull, as I was not able to delete the file that #Neil Patro says, I simply deleted the entire updates and all was ok.
I guess adding this as an answer might help.
Happened to me with an existing VS instance running, where I disabled an extension (VsChromium). Closing all VS instances solved the error and VS starts normally.
Env: VS 2019 Pro, Win 10 x64, running as current user.
I am getting an "Unknown Error" (shown below) alert when I try to launch Visual Studio 2017 Community after successful installation.
UPDATE: After Force uninstall & reinstallation
remove this folder (or similar):
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_db2a872f
folder name 15.0_db2a872f could be different in your machine eg. 15.0_XXXXXXX
found in the vs startup log that processing of Progression_NativePackage_Component_x86.pkgdef bailed out, indicating an inconsistent extension installation
I only had to rename(if you wan't to back it up)/delete the following file:
privateregistry.bin
or
privateregistry.user.bin
depending on Visual Studio version.
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_********\privateregistry.bin
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_********\privateregistry.user.bin
After restarting Visual Studio 2017 you may need to activate Tools or Extensions again.
Please check if the machine has Symantec Workspace Virtualization Agent installed. Removing the product from add\remove programs fixed the unknown error while launching VS 2017.
Here is the detail of the product.
Product code: {785F9A4D-D113-43B3-AA1D-77AD777F0A2F}
Package code: {32DB9767-3EF7-465A-ADF2-7ECFD25ABC12}
Install date: 2015.05.21
Version: 6.4.1266
Publisher: Symantec
I ran it as Admin and it somehow booted up just fine after that. I was getting the same error even after making sure that all packages and SDKs were installed until I ran it as admin.
Basically, just go to the shortcut in Start or to the .exe in the files, then right click it and run as Admin or change it in the properties. Tbh, it seems like a temporary fix and I'd actually like to know the real source of the problem, but for now, I don't have to reinstall and repair over and over.
Same version: Visual Studio Community 2017 installed using the launcher
I have a same problem after update VS 2017 Enterprise to the build 26228.9.
Repair installation doesn't fix anything. Still I got "Unknown error" message immediately after start VS2017.
Fixing is possible by removing this folder:
"C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_xxxxxxx"
where xxxxxxxx is some hexadecimal number.
BUT AFTER THAT YOU LOSE ALL SETTINGS that you done on your installation of VS 2017 (except product license key appliance).
Sorry that I must say this, but:
Maybe will be better stuck on the VS2015 for now. Because MS still not has really fully functional build of VS for now.
VS 2017 is still ready for first experimenting only and not for real work.
It is same story like a was when VS2015 has been published. (after several days stop working).
I fixed it the same way as niclar by deleting folder 15_.*. It does however appear that renaming privateregistry.bin has same effect with less trouble.
As mentioned by Torbjorn, ReSharper and other Extensions can mess up, however no reinstall required.
Merely go to Tools > Extensions and Updates... > Scroll through list of Installed Extensions > Enable those that should be enabled.
I have a side by side installation with VS2015. After opening and closing VS2015 once, VS2017 ist starting again normally. Strange but helped in my case.
I only needed to delete or rename ApplicationPrivateSettings.lock within C:\users{your username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_c31ecfb9 folder.
I was experiencing this issue with Visual Studio Professional
when not running as administrator. (It worked Ok as administrator)
I used Niclar's solution of deleting the folders.
I found same issue after installing the extension and removing the folder "C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_xxxxxxx" solved my problem.
you can rename the Solution Name and reopen the Project it solved for me after repairing the VS Installation
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.