General failure building bootstrapper - visual-studio-2010

while doing the build of my dontnet 4.0 project setup i'm getting following errors
An error occurred generating a bootstrapper: Unable to finish updating resource for E:\project\Setup\Debug\setup.exe with error 8007006E E:project\Setup\Setup.vdproj Setup
General failure building bootstrapper E:\project\Setup\Setup.vdproj Setup
Unrecoverable build error E:\project\\Setup\Setup.vdproj Setup
I am using dotnet framework 4 and MSVS 2010.

This happens because The .NET framework version required by the setup project is different than the .NET framework version targeted by the application.
To change verify this:
In Solution Explorer, click the Setup project.
On the View menu, point to Editor, and then click Launch Conditions.
Click .NET Framework.
In the Properties window, change the Version property to the version of the .NET Framework that you want the Setup project to check for and install.
And also you need to Make sure that the Setup.exe program also checks for and installs the correct version of the .NET Framework.
Right click on the setup project -> Properties -> Prerequisites -> Select the correct ones.

When I turn McAfee real-time scan off, it works. I spent 2 hours on figuring this out :(

I googled a lot on this issue after trying all i just disabled my antivirus(NPAV) and this issue was solved.

turning off mcafee real time scanning worked for me as well on Windows 8.1

Here is yet another solution, this one is unlike the rest...
We recently added NTFS replication to our build tree root to provide some additional data redundancy and to begin to sync our old build machine with the new server. The NTFS replication caused some projects to fail with the exact same three error reported, and yet other projects work just fine. Set the replication on only run at night and the problem stopped occurring...
K

I got the same error when I changed targeted framework to 4.0 but neglected to change prerequisits for click once from 3.5 to 4.0 as well.
Fixing prerequisits resolved the problem.

Instead of disabling the Anti-Virus, I would suggest to just create an exclusion for your Solution Folder. See documentation if you are using Windows Defender. Microsoft Support

I've just had this same error and then realised Dropbox was running. I closed Dropbox and then the build completed successfully.

Thank you qwerty13579! How stupid of me, the solution is obvious. I have tried all sorts of things suggested over the internet, and even with the most recent version of VS Community 2017 (15.9.9), the bootstrapper failure pops up erratically, but with increasing frequency, to the point of frustration this past week. The principle: It doesn't succeed reliably, so it also doesn't FAIL reliably. The solution: Click the Publish Now button and watch the output panel. When it's that clear that it's failing, click the Publish Now button again immediately. Keep at it until it succeeds! Each round only takes a couple of seconds, much less time that it takes to re-build, take down anti-virus, and all that fancy stuff.
In my case, I traced the problem to an incorrectly dated setup.exe file in the bin\Release\app.publish folder of my application. When it fails, Publish Now creates an setup.exe that's two years earlier than the current day. When it succeeds, the setup.exe file is correctly dated.

Got the same problem. I disabled Windows Defender real-time protection and it worked. I also added the folder where the solution is saved in exclusions for Defender, and that allowed me to publish as well.

Related

All project references have yellow triangles every time solution is loaded

All my project (from the same solution) references are marked with a yellow triangle. The projects are all set to the same .NET version (4.5.1). The error log says:
The project 'CommonLibrary' cannot be referenced.
A way to temporarily fix the issue is to either:
Remove and re-add the references
Right click and choose Add Service Reference and immediatelly cancel.
However, the triangles come back every time I start the solution.
The solution is build successfully regardless or the issue. The real issue is that Resharper acts like the references don't exist.
Another thing that might be relevant is that I have 2 projects that are supposed to be unloaded but they become active every time I load the solution.
Any idea what to do with the issue?
I had similar issues and it usually comes down to the Target Framework (Project>Properties>Application). I was working on a solution using .NET 4.6 and for some reason the default framework for new projects have a different target (in my case it was 4.5.2). So make sure you check all your project at the very least have the same target framework.
Do the following:
In vs choose: tools->options->resharper->options-> general-> click the clear caches button.
then close all your opened tabs and shut down vs2013.
finally, start vs2013 again.
Let me know if that worked for you.
Try switching to managed compatibility mode in VS2013
you can do that by going to tools->options..->General tab and check the Use managed compatibility mode
I had the same thing happen but didn't suspect the 24 warnings I was getting was related to this error: Error 1 Unable to locate the .Net framework aspnet_merge.exe tool on path '~\Photo Archive\Main\etc\tools'. You need to set the msbuild property 'AspnetMergeToolPath' to the folder containing this tool. ODOT.PhotoArchive.Web
Trying to set the MS build property led to a lot of research just to find out WHICH property to set. So, Agent Ransack to the rescue -- searched my drive for the most recent version of the tool and copied it to the directory Visual Studio was complaining about.
Rebuilt the project with the idea of clearing the error but then the 24 warnings also disappeared.
FYI -- this is an MVC project which will replace a classic asp project. This might be peculiar to MVC projects.
At any rate, there was a lot of chasing snipes before this was finally tried. So, where this is happening, try handling any errors no matter how remote the possibility is they're related to the issue.
I had the same problem as you can see in this picture.
Its reason was the hidden folder. I had hidden the folder containing the project files. I got rid of this problem by unchecking the hidden attribute of the root folder containing the project files and restarting the visual studio.
Check it once, you might have checked the folder to be hidden.

Unable to Activate Windows Store App

I installed a retail version of Windows 8 Pro. I downloaded and installed Visual Studio Express 2012. I asked for and received a developers certificate. Then I tried to create a hello world app.
From there I get a "Unable to Activate Windows Store App" message box when I try to debug the app. Most commentary on the web says delete build directories. This didn't work for me
Does anyone have a solution for how to fix this and debug my app?
This happened to me once too, but the deleting build directories advice fixed it. Specifically, you just need to delete the bin\Debug and bld\Debug folders in your projects. Their contents will be regenerated by Visual Studio when you rebuild. I assume that this is only one project since it's a Hello World app; otherwise I would ask if you deleted build directories from all projects in your solution.
You can also try running "Clean Solution" from the BUILD menu in Visual Studio.
I'm sorry...it's horrible if this is happening on a clean install as you describe.
I ran into the same issue, and tried rebuilding, cleaning, deleting temp files, rebooting the computer, etc... and nothing helped.
Then finally I made a release build then went back to debug. And now it works.
I have no idea what happened, nor if that really helped, but it's worth a try.
For me a RESTART of pc solved this error message.
For me the problem was that I created the app on a TrueCrypt mounted virtual drive and when I moved the project files to a normal drive then everything worked just fine. Weird.
I was getting the exact same error. In my case the culprit was a NuGet package. It had added an app.config file to the project and it was confusing VS. I removed the app.config file and it solved my issue.
I got the solution at Iris Classon's site.
This can be solved by Uninstalling the app from the start screen then again building the app from Visual Studio.
I had a similar problem, and the cause was creating the project on a USB thumb drive. Creating a project on a normal hard drive volume works.
this can happen when the application signing key (.pfx file) is missing.
Try the following:
Open the Package.appxmanifest file in Visual Studio
Go to the register "Packaging"
Select [Choose Certificate…]
Select the test certificate using [Configure Certificate…] [From File…], or create a new one using [Configure Certificate…] [Test Certificate…]
When using a test certificate, ensure that it is in the .gitignore file. There should be an entry like !**\*_TemporaryKey.pfx to include the key in Git.
Note: The certificate for release build should only be available to the build server and not included in Git.
Rebuild the project
This has happened to me in the past and I have always found that deleting the build directories resolves it.
However this time this is not working for me.
I have tried
- Rebooting
- Deleting build directories
- Running Build | Clean Solution in VS
- Renewing Developer Account
The only thing that will work for me is changing my Package name under the Package.appxmanifest
However I am not overly happy with this as a solution. I will keep investigating.
The issue might be caused because NuGet will try to add an app.config with binding redirects to Windows Store apps if it thinks it is needed. However, Windows Store apps don’t need app.config, and will actually fail to start with a very confusing error message if it is present.
And the solution in this case would be to Remove the App.config
This error generally comes when you try to deploy in debug mode.
I would suggest, deploy the app first in release mode and then try in debug mode.
This worked for me.
Making a new certificate works for me. For this, go to Package.manifest->Packaging, and follow the Choose certificate.... Click on Configure certificate and select Create test certificate. Give it a name and press OK.
Increasing the revision number of the package worked for me
Tried so many of the above fixes. Nothing worked (deleting bin, obj dirs, editing the manifest, editing the registry, changing package name, etc, etc.) My Avast antivirus software was running and so I uninstalled it completely. That was it. App now runs fine.
This sort of problems are common with Windows 8 Visual Studio. Such errors encounters when your developer license of Visual Studio has expired so you may want to renew or get a new developer license here's how you get that. How to get a developer license in Windows 8
And similar problem may also encounter with E_Fail issues here's how to solve Unable to activate Windows Store app E_Fail Issue
For me, the fix was a combination of two of these answers -
Renew the developer license (How to get a developer license in Windows 8)
And deleting the build directories (though I deleted more then the screenshot depicted) Delete the Build directories
NuGet will try to add an app.config with binding redirects to Windows Store apps if it thinks it is needed. However, Windows Store apps don’t need app.config, and will actually fail to start with a very confusing error message if it is present.
Solution:
Remove the App.config
and build again
For those who get a similar error but who are searching for a solution while debugging an IOT background app on a local machine specifically - you can find it here.
Using the search term "unable to activate windows store app the activation request failed with error" brought me here.
Because of Two things i resolved this issue.
Basically, we just need to delete the bin\Debug and bld\Debug folders in our projects. Those contents will be regenerated by Visual Studio when you rebuild project.
Just Restart the Visual Studio. And Clean Build and Rebuild the solution and RUN it.
Hope this helps.,
Playing with this issue for 3 days, tried every suggestions, nothing works. Until now!!!
The solution was this for me:
renew developer licence
build and deploy solution in Release mode (after this step it still not worked, but VS installed some packages in rpi)
start VS remote debugger with default account (http://:8080/#Debug%20settings)
configure remote device with Universal authentication mode (VS2017 -> Project settings -> debug -> target device: remote machine, authentication mode: Universal (unencrypted protocol))
...and now I can sleep.
Hope it helps somebody.
This gift was courtesy of Microsoft's automatic updates for VS2015 which was one of the 2 culprits:
KB3022398
KB3165756
It also broke SourceTree and other apps that draw the GUI - making an outline of the app but not drawing the contents.
For me changing the Package Name in Package.appxmanifest fixed the problem
In my case, the C# UWP app had a native library which failed in the application startup code, and called exit(1). The symptoms were identical to those in the question, though. Visual Studio would throw a message:
Unable to activate Windows Store app '88888888-6666-5555-4444-111111111111_abcdefgh!App'. The Acme.exe process started, but the activation request failed with error 'Operation not supported. Unknown error: 0x80040905'.
In addition, there was a message in the UWP app Windows log under Microsoft\Windows\Apps\Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational: event ID 5961, message:
Activation for 88888888-6666-5555-4444-111111111111_abcdefgh!App failed. Error code: Unknown HResult Error code: 0x80040905. Activation phase: COM App activation
Internally, the C# part would try to construct a native class instance from the App constructor, the native class constructor would encounter an unrecoverable error and bail. From the UWP subsystem standpoint, and from the debugger standpoint, though, this looked as something distinct from the mere programmatic exit. I'll leave this answer here, 'cause I've spent some time chasing various UWP failure scenarios instead of running under a native debugger.
I've replaced the exit() call with throw ref new Exception(E_INVALIDARG). At least this way the error manifests in the managed debugger, and the message is descriptive.
I've been having this problem a lot with a UWP Windows 10 app on Visual Studio 2019...for me the reliable workaround is to bump the Build number in the Package.appxmanifest file (Packaging tab). It's a huge pain...really hope Microsoft will sort this out soon
Any existing error in the code can also cause this issue. Make sure your previous version of the code is working fine. Compare the difference and make sure all looks good.
I was getting this error and nothing else worked so I had to dissect my program. Turns out I referenced a StaticResource in my App.xaml that didn't exist.
Seems like a silly error but you'd also think Visual Studio would pick up on something like that and throw a different error so if nothing else works, double check your application resources.
As suggested by #Iman in a comment, in the UWP project settings, enable "Compile with .NET Native tool chain".
(After trying just about every answer in this question)

Error: Cannot access file bin/Debug/... because it is being used by another process

When I debug my project, I get following error:
"Unable to copy file "obj\Debug\My Dream.exe" to "bin\Debug\My Dream.exe". The process cannot access the file 'bin\Debug\My Dream.exe' because it is being used by another process."
Using Process Explorer, I see that MyApplication.exe was out but System process still uses it although I stopped debug before.
Whenever I change my code and start debug it is going to happen. If I copy project to USB and debug, it runs OK.
Why? How can I fix this error?
I use Window 7 Professional. With Xp I have never got this error.
Ugh, this is an old problem, something that still pops up in Visual Studio once in a while. It's bitten me a couple of times and I've lost hours restarting and fighting with VS. I'm sure it's been discussed here on SO more than once. It's also been talked about on the MSDN forums. There isn't an actual solution, but there are a couple of workarounds. Start researching here.
What's happening is that VS is acquiring a lock on a file and then not releasing it. Ironically, that lock prevents VS itself from deleting the file so that it can recreate it when you rebuild the application. The only apparent solution is to close and restart VS so that it will release the lock on the file.
My original workaround was opening up the bin/Debug folder and renaming the executable. You can't delete it if it's locked, but you can rename it. So you can just add a number to the end or something, which allows you to keep working without having to close all of your windows and wait for VS to restart. Some people have even automated this using a pre-build event to append a random string to the end of the old output filename. Yes, this is a giant hack, but this problem gets so frustrating and debilitating that you'll do anything.
I've later learned, after a bit more experimentation, that the problem seems to only crop up when you build the project with one of the designers open. So, the solution that has worked for me long term and prevented me from ever dealing with one of those silly errors again is making sure that I always close all designer windows before building a WinForms project. Yes, this too is somewhat inconvenient, but it sure beats the pants off having to restart VS twice an hour or more.
I assume this applies to WPF, too, although I don't use it and haven't personally experienced the problem there.
I also haven't yet tried reproducing it on VS 2012 RC. I don't know if it's been fixed there yet or not. But my experience so far has been that it still manages to pop up even after Microsoft has claimed to have fixed it. It's still there in VS 2010 SP1. I'm not saying their programmers are idiots who don't know what they're doing, of course. I figure there are just multiple causes for the bug and/or that it's very difficult to reproduce reliably in a laboratory. That's the same reason I haven't personally filed any bug reports on it (although I've +1'ed other peoples), because I can't seem to reliably reproduce it, rather like the Abominable Snowman.
<end rant that is directed at no one in particular>
I've had this error crop up on me before, even in Visual Studio 2008. It came back and more prevalent in Visual Studio 2012.
Here is what I do.
Paste this in the troublesome project's pre-build event:
if exist "$(TargetPath).locked" del "$(TargetPath).locked"
if exist "$(TargetPath)" if not exist "$(TargetPath).locked" move "$(TargetPath)" "$(TargetPath).locked"
Computer (right-click) -> manage -> Service & Application -> service -> Enable Application experience
Worked For me!
I had the same issue in Visual Studio 2013. I'm not sure what caused this for my project, but I was able to fix it by cleaning the solution and rebuilding it.
Build > Clean Solution
Build > Rebuild Solution
I understand this is an old question. Unfortunately I was facing the same issue with my .net core 2.0 application in visual studio 2017. So, I thought of sharing the solution which worked for me. Before this solution I had tried the below steps.
Restarted visual studio
Closed all the application
Clean my solution and rebuild
None of the above steps didn't fix the issue.
And then I opened my Task Manager and selected dotnet process and then clicked End task button. Later I opened my Visual Studio and everything was working fine.
At least in my case I've noticed that visual studio 2012 was creating at least two msbuild.exe ghost processes, which did not perish after build. These zombies apparently are causing file locks to appear.
Killing msbuild.exe's is one time solution, it needs to be done per build basis.
But then I've figure out that I could disable parallel build once and for all - went into Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > Build and Run > "maximum numbers of parallel project builds" - by default it has value of 8, I've switched to 1. Works like charm.
Of course builds are bit slower now, but better safe than sorry.
At least for this particular small project I did not need more than one build thread.
See my answer here if you're having this problem while running unit tests. Answer copied below:
Building upon Sébastien's answer, I added a pre-build step to my test
project to automatically kill any vstest.* executables still
running. The following pre-build command worked for me:
taskkill /f /im vstest.*
exit 0
The exit 0 command is at the end to prevent build failure when there
are no vstest.* executables running.
I solved this problem..
near the debug you see drop down menu with some configuration. Default there was Any CPU. Select x86 and run the program it will work. If x86 not there go to configuration manager and add the x86
Recently I've been in a trouble with Visual Studio 2012 with same error description: "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process..."
To fix this first of all you need to understand the application which still use it. I've shutdown all processes like "MSBuild" and "MSBuild host". But this is not enough. If you have installed "Code Contracts" and turned on then it sometimes takes your DLLs for checking and hanging up on this operation.
So, you need to stop all processes of "CCCheck.exe" and that's all.
Finally, to understand that process is using your DLL you always may try to just Delete "obj" folder in your File Manager and this operation will fail, you may see the "Message Window" with description of the hanging operation. Also, as a variant, you can try to use "Sys Internals Suite" application.
Worked for me.
Task Manager -> Name of project -> End task. (i had 3 same processes with my project name);
VS 2013; Win 8;
Make sure that any previous run of the application (for example, start without debugging option) is actually stopped. I was working on a WPF application, started without debugging and had it minimized when I kept getting the error. After closing the application VS behavior got back to normal.
I have been plagued by this issue in Visual Studio 2017. It started about two or three weeks ago, and has severely eaten into my productivity. Clean and Rebulid haven't worked; even restarting my machine doesn't do the job.
One way to deal with the issue is to clean the offending assembly, and to build (as opposed to rebuild) the project you want to run immediately afterwards. This works about 30% of the time.
However, probably the most reliable solution I've found is to open a Developer Command Prompt, and use msbuild directly. I've been doing this for the last three days, and so far the problem hasn't happened once.
In my case was that I have enable "Show All Files".
Visual Studio 2017
Run taskmanager.
Locate netcore and delete it.
You can then delete the file manually or by running Clean.
This is pure speculation, and not an answer.
However, I have been having this problem for a while.
I came after a time to suspect an interaction between VS and my AV precautions.
After some playing, it seems that it may have gone away when I modified my antivirus so that everything under the
C:\Users[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ProjectAssemblies
folder was not included in the real-time protection.
It looks as if the build actually writes the DLL here first, then copies it to the final build location.
It could be too late. But, I encountered similar problem and in my case the project had self reference. Hence, deleting it from the References worked like a charm!!!
I've found the quickest way without closing forms or restarting VisualStudio is go to the project's compile page and click "Advanced Compile Options..." button. Then make any change to one of the options (say, changing Generate Debug Info from Full to pdb-only), then click OK.
It works every time and will have to do until MS fixes this bug (I've never had this problem until I switched from VS2012 to VS2013)
Another note, if you can't clean the project or solution, it won't build. The files are definitely locked by VS (not a antivirus problem, at least not in my case)
I tried all these suggestions as well as other suggestions found elsewhere and the only thing that worked for me was restarting my computer. Then I did a clean solution followed by rebuilding. I am using Visual Studio 2013 for reference.
I have run to this same issue, and what I found is there are actually running mulitple Windows form application in the background. It happens when your application has two forms and you close the 2nd form which is not your main form so the application will not totally exited.
I usually run my application
through its exe or
run without debugging
Solution is close the other instance of Windows form application.
This is one way to always close your application instance.
Pre build command
(if exist "$(TargetDir)*old.pdb" del "$(TargetDir)*old.pdb") & (if exist "$(TargetDir)*.pdb" ren "$(TargetDir)*.pdb" *.old.pdb)
Helped
[Solved] Error: Cannot access file bin/Debug/… because it is being used by another process:
I am approaching that you get this error while you was trying to run two windows form one after another such as first loading a form then after sometimes it will automatically disappear and the second form loaded onto the screen.
Basically, you need to close your first form which is running in the background and the main reason behind this error.
To close the first form you have to add these two lines of code in the second form load event handler.
Form1 form = new Form1();
form.Close();
This will solve the error perfectly.
One simple solution is you go to bin\Debug folder, delete all the files in that folder, then rebuild. If it doesn't work, close Visual Studio then go to bin\Debug folder using file explorer, on the left coner, click on File> Open Command Prompt> Open Command Prompt as Administrator > Enter this command "DEL /F /Q /A *" > then rebuild
i found Cody Gray 's answer partially helpful, in that it did direct me to the real source of my problem which some of you may also be experiencing: visual studio's test execution stays open by default and maintains a lock on the files.
To stop that predominantly useless behaviour, follow the instructions from https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/771994/vstest-executionengine-x86-exe-32-bit-not-closing-vs2012-11-0-50727-1-rtmrel
Uncheck Test menu -> Test Settings -> "Keep Test Execution Engine Running"
My problem was dotnet got hung up and whenever VS would try to make a new dll, or access an old one, the dotnet process would latch onto the dll and stop visual studio from cloning the dll. Solution is just to end all dotnet tasks in task manager(it will only actually remove the dead one, if you are trying to end one and it won't shut down, that means it's working).
Close VisualStudio, ctrl-alt-delete, select Task Manager, find and end all MSBuild processes - VisualStudio basically has a pretty severe bug where it loses control of its debugger and the debugger maintains a lock on the .pdb file in the debug/bin folder. After you end all the MSBuild (debugger) processes, delete the /debug/bin folder and reopen your solution in Visual Studio. You're good to go now. Microsoft needs to fix this crap.
I have opened a separate question regarding VS 2017 that had a similar behavior after one update. The problem seemed to be generated by the antivirus program although.
I have added the bin folder to the antivirus exclude list, restarted the machine and now it seems to work.
I have faced the same issue, but none of the answers above helped me! I just simply closed my Visual Studio 2017 then re-run it, and It worked!
I've tried every answered here and this worked for me
Close your Project.
Stop running tasks in task manager
Restart your pc
Open and build project again
it worked for me.
I got this error because I was running my solution, but not in debug mode. I had forgotten this. I realized it and stopped my solution from running. This cleared up the issue.
Another kludge, ugh, but it's easy and works for me in VS 2013. Click on the project. In the properties panel should be an entry named Project File with a value
(your project name).vbproj
Change the project name - such as adding an -01 to the end. The original .zip file that was locked is still there, but no longer referenced ... so your work can continue. Next time the computer is rebooted, that lock disappears and you can delete the errant file.

VisualStudio2010 Debugging - The process cannot access the file ... because it is being used by another process

I'm unable to debug a WinForms C# application using the released version of Visual Studio 2010 Prof.
I get the following error message after the second debugging run.
Error 9 Unable to copy file "obj\x86\Debug\Arrowgrass Reports.exe" to "bin\Debug\Arrowgrass Reports.exe". The process cannot access the file 'bin\Debug\Arrowgrass Reports.exe' because it is being used by another process.
I've tried a pre-build script to attempt to delete this file, but it's locked by Visual Studio.
There are a few references to this on the net so it is a know problem. Does anyone have a hotfix or effective work-around?
I have found this issue very easy to reproduce, and the fix for me is a variation on Richard Fors' answer. If I have a UserControl open in the designer, run the debugger, and then edit the UserControl, the subsequent rebuild will fail. If I close the UserControl before running the debugger I never get this error, so I just make sure to close the designer window before hitting F5.
As of October 2012, I still have that issue so the VS 2010 SP1 didn't solve the problem. What I did, and worked consistently, was disabling the hosting process in the projects.
To disable the hosting process:
. Open a project in Visual Studio.
. On the Project menu, click Properties.
. Click the Debug tab.
. Clear the Enable the Visual Studio hosting process check box.
Source:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms185330(v=vs.100).aspx
You can try to kill the vshost.exe process:
taskkill /F /IM "Arrowgrass Reports.vshosts.exe"
You might also be lucky and simply be able to move the file in question. Moving the file can be done by adding the following lines of code to the pre-build event of your project:
if exist "$(TargetPath).locked" del "$(TargetPath).locked"
if exist "$(TargetPath)" if not exist "$(TargetPath).locked" move "$(TargetPath)" "$(TargetPath).locked"
Disabling windows search did not fix for me. However disabling Antivirus did (our Antivirus is Symantec Endpoint Protection 11)
As such, I was able to fix this for myself by changing the Debug settings in the project to point the working folder to a path on the C: drive, and then excepting that path from the antivirus auto-protect scan settings.
I hope this helps someone.
I posted this answer in a similar question but figured I'd also say it here:
Alright... this might sound pretty crazy.
I've had this problem in VS2010 for the last couple of years. The workaround mentioned here works for me, but a lot of times I forgot to close all my forms/usercontrols first.
I've discovered that merely going to view the open files via:
Computer Management (compmgmt.msc)->Shared Folders->Open Files
will "Free up" whichever file is being locked. Very strange, but it works for me!
In my case, I did Project Properties-->Security Tab-->Uncheck Click-Once security settings (If it is checked). It worked for me. In my project, it was showing this error for a C++ dll being used in my C# project.
The condition described can also be caused by the offending DLL or EXE referencing itself; in which case the Process Explorer test described previously never returns a match (e.g. it's not running). This unexpected situation seems to be caused during some sequence of operations in VS2010 (and likely all previous versions) which insidiously adds the reference behind the scenes. The specific cause of this hasn't been tracked down (or resolved that I know of). To check for, and resolve this error simply make sure the offending DLL or EXE is not listed as a reference to itself.
Got the error ("The process cannot access the file … because it is being used by another process") when I modified the (Visual Studio 2010 C# Express with SP1) solution from two large (10 source files, ~500 lines per file) projects with one referencing the other, to lots (6) of smaller projects with lots of projects referencing other projects.
The references were to the dll- and exe files (the Debug versions of them), NOT to the projects even though the projects were in the same solution.
I then learned that references should be to projects, not files, for F12 to work properly. So I modified the references. That made F12 work (jump to the source file instead of some auto-generated interface description), and at the same time the "cannot access file" error during build disappeared.
I only got the "cannot access file" error when doing Release builds. The references were to the Debug versions of exe/dll's. I suspect that this mixing is what triggers the bug in VS.
I encountered this issue when developing windows services. I found out that it happens when the service is running. Thus, you only need to stop the service (from the services.msc console) and you're good to go !
Hope this helps.
Tidjani.
Check Task Manager for the specified process and End the process explicitly. This solution worked for me.
I cant' write to a comment since not at 50 points but for me I excluded my project folder in ESET Enpoint Security ver 5. Seems like it blocked/hogged some files. My Error did not state which exe or file was in use so it took a long time to finally get to what JoeC said about Antivirus and tried it. Seems to be working now (Visual Studio 2010 SP1)
Closing recently changed User Controls solved the problem in my scenario. Hope this will help somebody out there.
Looks like this issue has (finally!) been fixed in the VS2010 SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=75568aa6-8107-475d-948a-ef22627e57a5&displaylang=en
Please try uninstalling Windows Live SYNC. Does it still happen?
I think I just found the culprit and the solution.
Go to services and stop & disable the "windows search" service.
That solved the problem for me now.
For me the solution was to change the startup project to a dll (problem only occurs in debug mode when having an application as the startup project). If your solution contains several projects (and it will, and it will contain a .dll, else you would not get the problem), switch to that .dll, no .vshost.exe, no problem.
Also, killing .vshost.exe did not work for me, since immediately after starting again, it had locked the .dll.
Also, make sure to have your references clean, especially in more complex projects, and also prefer project references to assembly references, and so on. I suppose bad references (circular and similar) are bound to cause problems, at least so I have read.
A short article by me on this problem (and my solution)
How to "clean up" your references in a solution
Adding the following to the Pre-build event of the shared dll worked for me:
if exist "$(TargetPath).locked*" del "$(TargetPath).locked*"
set exitprebuildfor$(ProjectName)=
for /l %%a in (1,1,10) do (
if defined exitprebuildfor$(ProjectName) goto :ok
if not exist "$(TargetPath).locked%%a" if exist "$(TargetPath)" move "$(TargetPath)" "$(TargetPath).locked%%a" & set exitprebuildfor$(ProjectName)=1)
:ok
set exitprebuildfor$(ProjectName)=
It's based on the solution given here but instead of just renaming the dll to .locked it keeps trying to rename it to .locked1, locked2. Using 10 I usually run into the problem once a day, but ant value can be used.
Simply make a copy of the whole project and run project from the new copy.... it will work fine.
But you will have to end process of the debug somehow in-order to delete the older project.
Stop IIS service and try building it again or if you can afford to restart your pc, give it a try. Worked for me both ways.
Cheers
My problem was that Outlook 2010 (outlook.exe) was using the same port as my ASP.NET MVC project with IIS express.
Solution: close outlook.exe, run your solution and open outlook again (so that it uses another port).
Hopefully this helps somebody, because I received the same error message as described in this topic.
Try deleting .exe file in debug or release folder (whatever you working on)
Windows will prompt that the process X has opened this and you can't delete it
after that go to task manager and in details tab end task X process
Delete obj file.And stop your service and Restart again.Then you may solve the problem
The best solution for me was to move my project files out of My Documents - which is on a server managed by the IT department - and locate them locally on my C drive. Also working: unchecking the "Enable the Visual Studio hosting process" checkbox, as stated by other people.
If you are working on a C# project which is using reference of C DLL, then you can eliminate the error by checking the Allow unsafe code check box. I know I have not used pointers in my C# project but I was using some bitwise operator in C#. May be these C-like features morphed it as 'Unsafe' code.
What worked for me was removing "read only" status on the bin folder. Once I did that, it has worked ever since.
I've had this error when the project is on a remote share (like, if your $env:homepath is helpfully redirected by your IT department to a network share). Make sure your project is resident on a local drive.
My problem started after creating a custom control and drag and drop it to the toolbox palette for use it in design forms. First appeared a warning saying that there was a redundance between the custom control source file (.cs) and the projects executable (.exe). On executing/debugging appeared the error: unable to access the (.exe) because it's being used (and it was true).
A literally removed the whole source code regarding the custom control and last problem never stopped, until I checked out the references and it was referencing itself in order to be "able to" get the former custom control. I removed the reference and done!!
So: just check the references and remove the self-reference to the project.
Delete your Bin folder and run the application.
This worked for me. :)
Simply turn off Visual Studio hosting in debug, run the project and again re on it and run project.
Open a project in Visual Studio.
. On the Project menu, click Properties.
. Click the Debug tab.
. Clear the Enable the Visual Studio hosting process check box
For Windows Project
The Visual Studio hosting process can hold the executable file pointer. To stop the host instance, open the Project properties and then go to Debug tab. Now uncheck the Enable the Visual Studio hosting Process option and then check the checkbox again to debug.
For web project
The IIS can hold the file pointer. Restarting the IIS can solve the issue.

MSTest run fails because source assembly is not trusted

I just added xUnit to our test project (for the Asserts, we're still using MSTest as the framework) and immediately the test runs refused to execute any of the tests. This is the error message:
Failed to queue test run '{ .... }'
Test run deployment issue: The
location of the file or directory
'...xUnit.dll' is not trusted.
It took me a few tries to find the answer in Google, so I'm putting it here in case anyone else runs into the same problem. A detailed description can be found at this blog posting.
Basically, the fix invovles right-clicking on the dll file (xunit.dll for example) in Windows Explorer, going to Properties, and clicking "Unblock" at the bottom of the tab next to the 'Security' text. It seems that Vista / Windows 2008 will automatically mark assemblies that come from other machines or the internet as unsafe.
As a couple commenters have mentioned, you may also need to restart Visual Studio for this to take effect.
In my team we had the same problem.
Your solution didn't work, but this post by Charles Sterling did help.
We used the following line:
caspol -machine -addgroup 1 -url file://\\server/share/* FullTrust -name DevShare
After having this issue and burning hours trying to get "Unblock" to stick longer than a few minutes and/or figuring out caspol to no avail, I finally found a little tidbit via Google that the assemblies will be blocked again the next time you build or rebuild the project, since they're re-copied from their original source location. (I guess I never noticed that this happened before with references assemblies, but anyway...)
My fix for this was the following:
Copy all the needed DLLs to another
spot for safe-keeping
Remove the
references in Visual Studio
Physically delete the DLLs in the
bin folder
Unblock the DLLs
individually in the spot where they
were copied off
Add the references
back in Visual Studio from the
holding spot
Every subsequent build or rebuild worked fine afterward.
Running on an XP machine (even with .NET 3.5 SP1 installed) I was not able to get any of the other solutions listed here to work.
However working from the same post by Charles Sterling that Davy Landman references, I finally succeeded with this variation:
Run the .NET 2.0 Configuration tool (Settings... Control Panel... Administrative Tools... .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration)
Click down to "My Computer ... Runtime Security Policy ... Machine ... Code Groups ... All_Code"
Create a new code group with membership condition of "Zone"="Local Intranet" and assign the permission set "FullTrust"
Restart Visual Studio
After these steps I am able to run tests, including after restarts and rebuilds.
EDIT: as described in this answer, you may need to install the .NET SDK (which is different from the .NET framework) in order to have the .NET 2.0 Configuration tool on your system.
I had the same problem with moq. But would not 'unblock'. Every time I unblocked it, it was still blocked!?!?
I had to unblock the original zip file I downloaded. Then copy the DLL from the zip file again. It work after that.
It may seem really obvious now, but when I was clicking unblock the file was set as read-only.
Only after un-checking that attribute, applying, then selecting unblock did I actually get this working.
Give that a go.
:)
PS: I also deleted all the old dll's in my bin folder, just to make sure Visual Studio wasn't picking up the old one.
I had the same problem with downloaded DLLs blocked by Vista.
You need Administrator rights to get the "Unblock" button on the file's Properties.
I simply replaced the DLLs with the latest version from source control (TFS) where I had committed them before.
Go to file
Right click and select Properties
On the first Register click on Allow
I also tried opening the file in notepad++ and renaming it.
Slightly different approach, but it worked for me. The local file system then think it comes from the same machine.
It's not just the moq.dll that needs to be unblocked. The latest zip file includes an moq.xml and moq.pdb file - referencing the dll copies these other two files to the bin folders as well. If all three have not been unblocked the tests won't run, I found.

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