I have Visual Studio 2017 which was installed from the web.
Meanwhile, the corporate firewall rules changed and it's no longer possible to update the installation (download.visualstudio.microsoft.com is blocked).
At home I was able to download a complete Visual Studio 2017 layout to an external drive.
Now, how can I instruct Visual Studio Installer to use the external drive layout instead of trying to download from the web?
After googling a bit, I found some clues here and there, but never got a direct answer. I had to do some experiments until I found a very simple solution:
Open folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages\_Instances (or equivalent in your machine). This folder should contain a subfolder with the VS2017 instance GUID (from now on referred to as VS_GUID). Note: ProgramData is a hidden folder.
(Optional) Create a backup of file C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages\_Instances\{VS_GUID}\state.json in another directory of your choice.
Edit file C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages\_Instances\{VS_GUID}\state.json (note: VS_GUID is the sub-folder name found in step 1)
and change layoutPath to your local layout folder and installChannelUri to the full path to ChannelManifest.json (which should be present in the layout folder root).
Example (when layout path is D:\vs2017layout):
(...)
"layoutPath":"D:\\vs2017layout",
"installChannelUri":"D:\\vs2017layout\\ChannelManifest.json"
(...)
Save state.json and launch vs_professional_xxxxxxxxx.yyyyyyyy.exe (or equivalent) which is located in the layout folder. If it detects the updated installation files then the "download" progress should move to 100%.
This worked for me.
I have a problem with installation Visual Studio Professional 2015 Update 3. I don't know what cause the problem, but setup is failed every time in each setup configuration. Setup manager shows me following error and warning:
Microsoft Visual Studio Services Hub
The system cannot open the device or file specified
I really don't know how to solve this problem. Does anyone know what is wrong and how can I install this program?
Greetings
SOLUTION
I know what was the problem! I didn't check thoroughly the default location where Visual Studio wants to install. On my PC I have installed a 64-bit Windows 7. After many tries of installation I saw that installator chose wrong Program Files folder. It tries to install Visual Studio in Program Files (x86) (dedicated for 32-bit programs). I really don't know why VS installator chose a default folder for a 32-bit programs while my VS is a 64-bit version and also Windows is a 64-bit version.
I hope that this solution will help someone who has the same problem.
Most likely this is because of Windows Installer cannot access the %TEMP% folder (I had similar error once, but with MSSQL setup). So:
First of all check if you %TEMP% environment variable points to the
right location
Then check if the account which is running VS setup has privileges to
access TEMP folder. Better yet, make sure you run setup as
administrator
Finally make sure you have disabled all disk or folder encryption
features
Also just to be sure disable any antivirus software you have running
The error message “The system cannot open the device or file specified” often related to the specific folder is encrypted, you can have a look at this article and try the following methods:
Save the VS installer file to a folder that is not encrypted
Install the VS to a folder that is not encrypted
Turn off encryption on the %temp% folder
To check the encryption of the specific folder, you can right click the folder and select ‘Properties’— ‘General’ tab, click ‘Advanced’ button and confirm the checkbox of ‘Encrypt contents to secure data’ is checked or not.
You can click the ‘log file’ in the VS installer screen that you shared, and find the specific folders that these 2 components ‘Microsoft Visual Studio Services Hub’ and ‘Visual C++ IDE Common Package’ stores and check if those folders are encrypted or not.
Microsoft WebMatrix comes with an awesome Windows Explorer context menu option that allows you to open a folder as a website project. Are there any extensions or scripts I can use to add a similar option to do the same with Visual Studio?
I found a small project that does just what you're asking for:
The complete code can be downloaded here. Once you have the code
downloaded and compiled, to add the “Open as Website” option to the
Windows Explorer context menu you'll need to run the .reg file
included in the download. This adds a registry entry in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\ that runs the
program, passing in the path folder of that was just right-clicked.
You will need to customize this .reg file before you run it, putting
in the path to the program. You'll also need to specify the path to
dump the project files. I chose the folder C:\Documents and
Settings\Scott\My Documents\Visual Studio
2005\Projects\TempWebsiteProjects, but any path should suffice.
Take a look here for the full instructions: http://scottonwriting.com/sowblog/archive/2005/12/05/163132.aspx
I'm running Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) with IISExpress8 and when navigating to
c:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express>iisexpress.exe
it says:
Filename: redirection.config
Error: Cannot read configuration file
Any ideas where to start?
I can't find anything...
I had a similar issue to #Myles J but renaming %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config didn't work. What I had to do was the following:
Close Visual Studio.
Rename the %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory.
Start Visual Studio again. The %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory will be recreated with the default config files.
Copy the original applicationhost.config file over the autogenerated one.
Before anyone asks: the permissions on the folders were identical, the read-only flag was not set on the folder or its files, and I didn't modify applicationhost.config in any way.
After installing IIS Express, copy all files from
C:\Program Files\IIS Express\config\templates\PersonalWebServer
to
%userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config
Right click on your project file and Edit the project file and remove the URL from IISUrl and reload your project then it will work
I have just resolved this. It is a strange solution but it worked for me. Here are the steps I took:
Navigate to the folder containing the local IISExpress config files (normally My Documents>IISExpress>config on Windows7).
Find the applicationhost.config file. Rename it to something different e.g. applicationhost2.config.
Navigate to your web project in Visual Studio (I was using VS 2012). Right click on the web project and select Use IISExpress. Run the project. It should fail due to the renaming of the config file.
Change the name of the configuration file back to application.config. Ensure "Use Local IIS Web Server" is selected in the web project settings. Run the solution.
This worked for me.
If you do:
C:\Users\”username*****”\Documents\IISExpress\config
You find these file
applicationhost.config
aspnet.config
redirection.config
Delete above 3 file and then open the project.then the problem is solved. I tried, its working fine.
I have the exact same issue with Visual Studio 2013 on Windows 8.1
I map My Documents folder to SkyDrive, so the IISExpress folder was marked as "Online-only". Once I marked it as "Available offline" everything worked.
Visual Studio will only report the filename it looks for, not the full path. The problem for many users is that the IISExpress with the redirection.config can exist in multiple paths, including a OneDrive path which may not be synced.
To figure out exactly what file Visual Studio attempts to open, use the Microsoft (SysInternals) tool ProcMon. It lists all files and resources Windows tries to access. Add a filter for "Path contains redirection.config" and reproduce the problem in Visual Studio. Now you will see the actual path it tries to use.
In my case, I have multiple IISExpress folders. One that was synced to OneDrive and another one that was local. Visual Studio tried to access the OneDrive folder which was not synced to the local disk, and thus it failed.
In some situations simply renaming/deleting the applicationhost.config file isn't enough since VS won't always recreate it for you. I believe the following will fix it under all circumstances:
Close Visual Studio.
Make sure there are no IIS Express processes running, then delete C:\Users\XXXX\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config (where XXXX is your Windows username).
On command line, execute c:\Program Files\IIS Express\iisexpress.exe. This will recreate the necessary configs. Press 'Q' straight away to end the process.
Open Visual Studio again and Start/Debug your web project. Everything should now be working.
Backup files at local IISExpress folder. It can be found at: C:\Users\”username*****”\Documents\IISExpress\config
Go to the location:
C:\Program Files\IIS Express\config\templates\PersonalWebServer
Copy the required files from this directory to the local IISExpress folder.
It worked for me after I copied over the files:
applicationhost.config
aspnet.config
redirection.config
In my case the 'My documents' folder for my work laptop was mapped to a network share. So when the work network was not available I was not able to open my solution.
Change:
These will have the value of my docs in network share. Change this to local
I. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal
II. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal
For eg:
Old value: \networkdrive\c$\Users\profile\Documents
New value: C:\Users\profile\Documents
See:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chiranth/2015/04/01/error-while-runningstarting-a-website-under-iisexpress-in-visual-studio/
The issue is that the files in C:\Users\"Your Username"\Documents\IISExpress\config are encrypted.
Open this folder, Select all the files, Right click and select properties,
Click advanced, deselect "Encrypt contents to secure data, Click okay, click apply.
That will fix it.
Using Visual Studio 2013
I had to stop visual studio rename the whole config directory, Documents > IISExpress> Config then start a new web project, which fails but it recreates the config directory, then I rebooted and launched visual studio and everything worked!
I noticed this problem after copying a project between 2 computers, perhaps it was caused by a duplicate IISExpress port or something trivial.
Using VS2013 / Windows 7
Close solution. Open Windows Explorer and right-click on "My Documents\IISExpress\config" directory and select "Decrypt". Be sure "Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files" is selected. Reopen VS solution.
In my case it happened when IISExpress was still active from a previous VS session and new instance of VS was run.
The solution was to stop (or kill) IIS Express instance.
Fix was really simple for me >> Restart Visual Studio
My setup:
Visual Studio 2015
Web projects use local IIS 8.5
I occasionally experience what I believe to be a VS bug where it converts some projects to use IISExpress (this is fixed by deleting the folder created in /This PC/Documents). This might be related.
You don't need to close Visual Studio or rename anything.
Open properties for %userprofile%\Documents
Select Security > Advanced, change owner to yourself (again if you are already owner).
Select "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" and "Replace all child object permission entires with inherited permission entires from this object".
Ok.
For me, It's a simple lack of permission either give everyone permission
to "%userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config" this folder or Open VS in Admin mode
for me was removing the file Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config
Closing visual studio > Open > Debug
Thanks for the previous answer help go straight to the issue
After trying to solve an issue with a quick fix of changing IIS express inside visual studio from integrated to classic pipeline , I ended up not being able to use IIS express at all. I tried all techniques above...
I could not rename , copy the file. Uninstall of IIS express and re-install did not work.
I FINALLY downloaded the latest version of WebMatrix and installed IIS express 8, that did not work, but at least then i was able to finally delete the old directory and then I recreated itself.....
NOT FUN AT ALL.
I resolved this (with vs2013 and windows 7) by going to Documents > IISExpress> Config and renaming the application.config. After that, I restarted visual studio and opened my project and it worked.
I ran into this issue while trying to open another developer's solution after installing VS2013 (Update 3 RC). After following the advice here and deleting/renaming/etc. the config folder, VS re-created the files in the wrong location. It created nested config folders:
C:\Users[user]\Documents\IISExpress\config\config
I moved everything from ...\config\config into ...\config, and it worked as expected.
I found that deleting one of the sites from the applicationhost.config file resolve this problem for me.
I used the following command from the %ProgramFiles(x86)%\IISExpress directory:
appcmd list site
then
appcmd delete site rogueSiteName
Especially there was a site name with a bracketed number suffix (e.g. "MySite(1)") that I deleted. I'm not sure yet if VS2013 just had an issue with the brackets or that two sites pointed to the same directory. Either way deleting it made VS happy again.
Background
I had been struggling with this issue for a couple of days and nothing seemed to help - not even the instructions given in the top answers here.
I had also tried moving the config folder as mentioned in http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/introduction-to-iis-express/iis-80-express-readme. But although VS2013 recreated the directory structure and files in the new location the errors continued and running appcmd showed that it was still pointing at the old location by default.
Credits
Credit for where I found the commands to use goes to http://gyorgybalassy.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/cleaning-up-iis-express-configuration/
For ASP.Net Core just access your Properties section, then make a modification and save it.
Example: I modified the SSL port
You will get a notification that your launchsettings.json was modified. Accept that and you're good to go.
If it is ASP.NET Core project
Just try to change iis port in file launchSettings.json by path iisSettings:iisExpress:applicationUrl
It's 2020, I am reporting the same problem in Visual Studio 2019.
Cause: Multiple VS instances open with different web app (Blazor in my instance).
Solution: Close all VS instances and re-open the solution that you want to run.
On IIS 10 Express. Make sure that Visual Studio (VS) is turned off.
I first found out that %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\ was not working.
I first thought IIS Express had clashed with IIS from the windows OS.
I uninstalled it, yet no changes, then I uninstalled IIS 10 Express that was installed with VS 2019 through the control panel.
Then I went ahead to discover that this file is saved at the C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Documents\IISExpress, associated with one drive storage, so I advise you copy %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\ and paste in your windows explorer navigation to find directory.
go to one directory higher, and/or rename the config folder. Restart your VS and run the project again.
Mine was caused by OneDrive. Apparently my documents folder is being synced to it.
What I did is changed the location of the documents folder through regedit and navigated to this path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > User Shell Folders
and then changed the value of Personal
from: C:\Users\my username\OneDrive\Documents
to C:\Users\my username\Documents
After that I restart my computer and I was able to create a VS project.
I have the same issue,
First time, i think Visual Studio not permission access to %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config so i run Visual Studio with Administrator, but it not working.
I try all answer above but still the error!
Finally, i look internet, i see my onedrive is stopping, i enable and sync data. Restart computer and worked.
I have to find a suitable location to deploy my SDF (database) file.
The file must be the same to all users
Windows applications can't write to the ProgramFiles folder.
One user can't access other user's AppData folder
A good choice would be %ProgramData%
In Visual Studio Setup Project File System view, when I right click the output folders I don't have the %ProgramData% option
How to write to that folder?
Check this out:
Specifying c:\ProgramData folder in Setup project?
Winforms Deployment
string path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData);
CommonApplicationData is C:\ProgramData on Windows > Vista, and something like C:\Documents and Settings\All Users on XP.
Actually this question is a duplicate. Here is the real way tell VDPROJ to deploy to that location:
Writing to AppData from a Setup & Deployment Project
But that will leave another problem: Standard Users won't have write privs to that directory. You'll either have to write a custom action to open it up or you'll have to use a better MSI authoring tool such as Windows Installer XML (open source) or InstallShield 2010LE ( free ) that has proper support for defining resource permissions.