I'm running Visual Studio 2012, when I add a new File/Reference to a project the message box appears showing the error message
set property 'system.windows.resourcedictionary.deferrablecontent' threw an exception
I read an MSDN article suggesting to run the command devenv /resetuserdata on visual studio command prompt to resolve this problem, tried it but didn't work for me. In fact the command prompt shows the Unknown Error message.
Some addins cause this issue for me so have had to workaround it whenever it occurs:
In Vis studio -
Tools > Options > Environment > Add-in Security, uncheck 'Allow Add-in components to load', OK
Restart vis studio
The error shouldn't occur anymore, so go back to
Tools > Options > Environment > Add-in Security and re-check Allow Add-in components to load, OK
To be specific, I get this error when trying to add files to projects and manage Nuget Packages.
Update
I now make a point of opening
'Tools > Nuget package manager > Manage nuget packages for solution'
whenever I open up a new instance of Vis studio, before loading a solution, just to make sure the window loads properly
That way I know I won't get this issue.
In my case it was a style with the same key defined twice in a ResourceDictionary (WPF)
I have Windows azure tools for Microsoft VisulStudio 2013- v2.2 and Windows azure tools for Microsoft lightswitch VisulStudio 2013- v2.2.
I uninstall only Windows azure tools for microsoft lightswitch vs 2013 .
It's working fine...
I fixed it. The resolution was to remove the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio 2012 which I was not actually using, and the error went straight away.
In my case it was to first launch Visual Studio in safe mode. You can create a shortcut for visual studio with a target like this:
'"F:\Program Files\Visual Studio\VS2013\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" -safemode'
Once launched in safe mode, you can remove the problematic extension via the Addin Manager. However, this wont work for some extensions, as the uninstall option might be disabled for certain extensions when running in safe mode, particularly if you have already uninstalled another extension in the same session.
In My case the problem was caused by Paradox Game engine, in which I had uninstalled it via 'Programs and Features' - which in return did not remove the extension which was originally installed via Nuget package. Uninstalling Paradox via "Programs And Features" left the extension itself still registered in Visual Studio, presumably causing a hidden NullReferenceException.
This issue can be caused by any extension that may have an error in it, or by extensions that were not properly uninstalled.
Also, see this article...
The mentioned issue can be resolved by simply restart the Visual Studio. :P
Also seem to be able to get around this by closing the project and vis studio instance, re-opening, then when the start page/open project screen appears selecting Tools > Extensions and Updates..., then pressing Close
Now open the project and the error doesn't get thrown when trying add files or manage nuget packages, weird.
Just annoying you have to remember to open Extensions and Updates each time...
Other wise make sure given Resourcedictionary.xaml path is correct or not
I had to remove Xamarin from Add/Remove Programs in Control panel and restart Visual studio to fix this.
I had this problem with My Devexpress Project in VS 2015
What finally worked for me was.
Close my solution,
Close Visual Studio,
Open Visual Studio,
Create a New dummy project,
Add a form to it,
Close and save the new project,
Reopen original project and all was ok.
for everyone else who are working in silverlight sdk environment with windows phone8 sdk.
The versions of sliverlight which are compatible with visual studio versions -
vs2012- sliverlight sdk 4
vs2013- silverlight sdk 5
I was integrating in vs2013 and as soon as I updated it with silverlight sdk 5, The errors went away.
In my case it was the Line Endings: you can have different formatting and by copy pasting some code one file got a different Line Ending. It was enough to File > Save As and then click the little arrow next to the save button.
Then click on save with encoding and choose the one you are using in all other files.
See Andrew Truckle's answer.
I hope this helps
When i try to access my solution Properties, i get the following error:
Object reference not set to an instance of an object
I am using VS 2012. What could be the cause of this?
Some extensions may cause this.
Try disabling extensions and restarting Visual Studio.
Quite often error will be gone even if you re-enable extensions after this.
There's a bug report on Microsoft Connect (link).
It is marked there as "Closed as External", but it seems that it may occur randomly with any extension, so would be worth voting it there to bring it to Microsofts attention.
In my case, the problem was solution-specific. NuGet was causing this error, but not the extension itself but a NuGet package that generated an error on VS load. When I opened NuGet Package Manager Console I saw a big red text with a description of the error. In my case it was T4Scaffolding.Core package, which in turn is a dependency of MVCMailer.
If this is your case, you will probably see what package generates an error in PM Console.
I faced this dialog too and i'm not sure what exactly causes this as i couldn't even open the NuGet console to see detailed error messages.
Closing Visual Studio, deleting %AppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio and restarting Visual Studio worked for me as it causes a reset of various things like window configurations.
I think if this dialog is displayed some files may be corrupt in %AppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio and by deleting that folder Visual Studio can start normally again.
Update:
The issue arises on my machine when i start Visual Studio by using "run as administator" whereas Visual Studio has been started before without that option and %AppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio had been created without the administator association.
Visual Studio 2013: I had this issue when I tried opening TOOLS -> Extensions and Updates.
I used #ViRuSTriNiTy idea, but only cleaned the files from:
C:\Users[myUserName]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\Extensions
There are 2 cache files over there.
Deleted them and restarted VS2013 and it was fixed
The way it was happening for me might be unique to me/my setup, but I'd love to know if anyone else has this happen, and if they find out why:
If I launch an .sln file by double-clicking it, it will load VS and I can right-click the Solution and get Properties to come up no problem.
If I go to "Open Project" on the Visual Studio welcome page or from File > Open > Project/Solution, navigate to the .sln file and launch it by selecting it and clicking "Open" in the File dialog, that's when I have this issue.
I'm going to just always launch the .sln file from now on, but I'd love to know why this happens when using "Open Project" from the welcome page or from File > Open > Project/Solution! I tried going into Tools > NuGet Package Manager > General and I unchecked the options for allowing NuGet to download missing packages and Skip applying binding redirects, and under Package Sources I de-selected the checkboxes (my dev machine does not connect to the internet). Environment > Extensions and Updates: I tried it with and without "Load per user extensions when running as administrator" and running it as an Admin and without running as Admin. Also tried just deleting everything at C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio. No change from those 2 bullets above.
I am Visual Studio 2010 Professional user. But for a reason I need Visual Web Developer 2008 Express edition.
I downloaded this, but I need the serial key to activate the product, otherwise it will expire in 30 days.
When I go there, I got this error:
"Thank you for your interest in registering Visual Studio. We are currently experiencing issues with the registration process. We are working on this and will have it fixed as soon as possible. Please try to register your product again at a later time. We apologize for the inconvenience."
I tried for a long time, but I got the same error every time. Is there any other way to get the serial key?
I have an improvement on the answer #DewiMorgan gave for VS 2008 express. I have since confirmed it also works on VS 2005 express.
It lets you run the software without it EVER requiring registration, and also makes it so you don't have to manually delete the key every 30 days. It does this by preventing the key from ever being written.
(Deleting the correct key can also let you avoid registering VS 2015 "Community Edition," but using permissions to prevent the key being written will make the IDE crash, so I haven't found a great solution for it yet.)
The directions assume Visual C# Express 2008, but this works on all the other visual studio express apps I can find.
Open regedit, head to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VCSExpress\9.0\Registration.
Delete the value Params.
Right click on the key 'Registration' in the tree, and click permissions.
Click Advanced...
Go to the permissions tab, and uncheck the box labeled Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects. Include these with entries explicitly defined here.
In the dialog that opens, click copy.
Note that in Windows 7 (and 8/8.1, I think), it appears the copy button was renamed to add, as in add inherited permissions as explicit permissions.
In Windows 10, it appears things changed again. #ravuya says that you might have to manually re-create some of the permissions, as the registry editor no longer offers this exact functionality directly. I don't use Windows very much anymore, so I'll defer to them:
On Win10, there is a button called "Disable Inheritance" that does the same thing as the checkbox mentioned in step 5. It is necessary to create new permissions just for Registration, instead of inheriting those permissions from an upstream registry key.
Hit OK in the 'Advanced' window.
Back in the first permissions window, click your user, and uncheck Full Control.
Do the same thing for the Administrators group.
Hit OK or Apply.
Congratulations, you will never again be plagued by the registration nag, and just like WinRAR, your trial will never expire.
You may have to do the same thing for other (non-Visual C#) programs, like Visual Basic express or Visual C++ express.
It has been reported by #IronManMark20 in the comments that simply deleting the registry key works and that Visual Studio does not attempt to re-create the key. I am not sure if I believe this because when I installed VS on a clean windows installation, the key was not created until I ran VS at least once. But for what it's worth, that may be an option as well.
The question is about VS 2008 Express.
Microsoft's web page for registering Visual Studio 2008 Express has been dead (404) for some time, so registering it is not possible.
Instead, as a workaround, you can temporarily remove the requirement to register VS2008Exp by deleting (or renaming) the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/VCExpress/9.0/Registration
To ensure that this is working beforehand, click Help -> register product within VS2008.
You should see text like
"You have not yet registered your copy of Visual C++ 2008 Express
Edition. This product will run for 10 more days before you will be
required to register it."
Close the application, delete that key, reopen, click help->register product.
The text should now say
"You have not yet registered your copy of Visual C++ 2008 Express
Edition. This product will run for 30 more days before you will be
required to register it."
So you have two options - delete that key manually every 30 days, or run it from a batch file that also contains a line like:
reg delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VCExpress\9.0\Registration /f
[Edit: User #i486 confirms on testing that this workaround works even after the expiration period has expired]
[Edit2: User #Wyatt8740 has a much more elegant way to prevent the value from reappearing.]
Getting a product key is free. Here is how I did it:
I just downloaded the 2012 Express install ISO image. After install I got the message "This product will expire in 30 day(s). Registration is required for the continued use of Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web."
On that same screen is a register online link. Clicking that I signed in with my live account, updated my profile, and got a registration key.
Visual C# Express 2005 ISO File does not require registration
I believe that if you download the offline ISO image file, and use that to install Visual Studio Express, you won't have to register.
Go here and find the link that says "All - Offline Install ISO image file". Click on it to expand it, select your language, and then click "Download".
Otherwise, it's possible that online registration is simply down for a while, as the error message indicates. You have 30 days before it expires, so give it a few days before starting to panic.
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.