I have been trying to update and modify my Visual Studio 2017 for 2 days now, but each time I run the Visual Studio Installer, I get this message:
"A restart is required. If needed, any remaining setup will resume
after the restart."
Obviously I restarted about 10 times...
Any idea what I must delete where to get rid of any temp garbage that is hindering my attempts to modify my installation?
I encountered the same issue while installing Visual Studio 2019. I tried the PowerShell script proposed by #onmyway, to no avail.
Naturally, as with any simple problem in Windows, the fix is to manually edit the Windows Registry 🙄
It appears the installation may leave some stale keys behind. Remove the following keys from the registry according to your platform:
32Bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Reboot
64Bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Reboot
This immediately fixed my installation, and Visual Studio 2019 was able to start without further rebooting. I cannot promise that this will fix the issue for VS2017 users, but I leave this here for future readers.
Credit goes to Matt Cavallari from this forum thread.
I eventually found a working solution!
It is a script one runs with PowerShell, that resets the state.
So, for anyone else with the same issue, I hope this helps:
https://gist.github.com/heaths/1d0658c6903871e09b72395c9ab44db1#file-reset-instancestate-ps1
It seems that you've stopped the setup in half-way as same thing happened to me when I stopped the setup in half way. So I uninstalled the download and started downloading component by component which worked.
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
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
I've had a serious issue with my Visual Studio 2008 setup. I receive the ever-so-useful error 'A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.' whenever I try to uninstall, reinstall or repair Visual Studio 2008 (team system version). If I can't resolve this issue I have no choice but to completely wipe my computer and start again which will take all day long! I've recently received very strange errors when trying to build projects regarding components running out of memory (despite having ~2gb physical memory free at the time) which has rendered my current VS install useless.
Note I installed VS2005 shell version using the vs_setup.msi file in the SQL Server folder after I had installed VS2008, in order to gain access to the SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio (this is inexplicably unavailable in VS2008).
Does anyone have any solutions to this problem?
P.S.: I know this isn't directly related to programming, however I feel this is appropriate to SO as it is directly related to my ability to program at all!
Note: A colleague found a solution to this problem, hopefully this should help others with this problem.
A colleague found this MS auto-uninstall tool which has successfully uninstalled VS2008 for me and saved me hours of work!!
Hopefully this might be useful to others. Doesn't speak highly of MS's faith in their usual VS maintenance tools that they have to provide this as well!
I had the same error message. For me it was happening because I was trying to run the installer from the DVD rather than running the installer from Add/Remove programs.
In my case, uninstalling from Add&Remove Programs didn't work. Instead, the problem was due to a recently hotfix installed through automatic updates. The hotfix to VS 2008 (in my case) has the number KB952241, so I uninstalled it using Add/Remove Programs checking on the show updates option. After it was unistalled the problem was gone.
I encountered the same problem and found a very easy solution.Go to the following Link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/bb968856.aspx
and run VS AutoUninstall tool .This will automatically remove all the components of VS 2008.
Cheers
Sure enough, for me, it was the hotfixes. In Add/Remove Programs, check the "Show Updates" box, and remove ALL of the Hotfixes associated with your version of VS2008. Then try the "Change/Remove" button - it should now proceed without a hitch.
Well, it did for me, anyway... ;-)
I have Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition, and had to remove all updates and Hotfixes:
Update KB972221
Hotfix KB973674
Hotfix KB971091
Reboot, then the following Hotfix appeared, which I then removed as per #riaraos' answer:
Hotfix KB952241
Before the Change/Remove would work!
Hope that helps someone else.
Uninstall hotfixes installed in related to vs2008 and then try again.
It worked for me and hopefully it will for you as well.
Thanks,
Zelalem
Remove the following hot fixes and updates
Update KB972221
Hotfix KB973674
Hotfix KB971091
Restart the PC and try to uninstall now. This worked for me without problems.
Microsoft itself posted a KB article about this, and that article has a service pack that they claim fixes the problem. See below.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959417/
It took a while for the associated update to install itself, but once it did, I was able to run the Visual Studio setup successfully from the Add/Remove Programs control panel.
You should look for the MSI setup logs in the temp directory of your system. They will contain detailed inforamtion about why the setup failed.
I had a similar installation problem with Visual Studio 2008 which I was able to resolve by studying the logs.
I think this sort of question is entirely appropriate to the forum, especially if an easy solution can be found, as would save others hours of pain.
Unfortunately I dont have the solution, but would suggest (if you haven't already)
Run FileMon to see if the
installer is looking for specific
files which are no longer there -
this may give some clues.
Painful, but try uninstalling other apps based upon the VS shell (eg 2005) first.
Thanks, riaraos, uninstalling KB952241 was the solution for me, too. Before doing that I tried to run the installer from "Programs and Features" and from the installation DVD without success. I did not want to completely remove the VS 2008 installation but only add a few components.
Notes on my system:
Windows 7 Beta 1
Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Okay I had the same issues first my VS2008 was acting up so i tried to uninstall it and it didn't work...I read online that using an AutoUninstall by MS will do the trick it did just that , but left a lot of nasty files behind..
So i used "Windows Install Clean Up" and cleaned up more stuff that had to do with VS..
then went back into Add and remove in control panel Removed the KB952241...
then opened up Ccleaner and scanned the registry found a lot of left behind crap from VB2008 removed all that once that was done.
I went ahead and launch the installed back from the CD again and BAM its working.
I did all this without having to restart my PC..
Hope this helps people who are stuck..like i was
In my case, installing visual studio SP1 unbroke the uninstall/repair functionality.
Windows 7 suggested to "Uninstall using recommended settings" after hitting OK in the error message. It solved the problem.
Solution to this is
http://www.dotnetzone.gr/cs/forums/48758/ShowThread.aspx#48758