Prevent Visual Studio from crashing (sometimes) - visual-studio

How can I stop Visual Studio (both 2005 and 2008) from crashing (sometimes) when I select the "Close All But This" option?This does not happen all the time either.

First, check Windows Update and make sure both VS environments are up to date.
If that doesn't help, uninstall them both completely, reinstall only 2005, update and test it. If 2005 doesn't crash, install 2008, update and test them both. Don't install any add-ons you may have been using until you've reinstalled and tested both editions of VS.
If one or the other does crash, you should try filing a bug against Visual Studio.
If they didn't crash, install any add-ons that you use one at a time and continue to test both editions after each one. (This will take ages, but that's how it has to be) When they start crashing, remove the offending add-on, and file a bug with the add-on developer. (be sure to tell them what other add-ons you're using, in case it only happens when 2 conflicting add-ons are installed.)

I would highly consider uninstalling and then installing Visual Studio again. Afterwards make sure you have installed available service packs for your VS version.

Does it happen on all projects or a specific one?
Does it only occurs when a specific file is open?
Try re-installing visual studio and any/all service packs.

Try to reset the Visual Studio settings (Tools->Import and Export Settings->Reset All Settings).

Maybe you can try to reproduce this using a specific solution and csproject file and report it to Microsoft?
That's the best shot you can ever have.

Another alternative:
Study for 10 years to become a really good programmer
Apply for (and get) a job at Microsoft in the Visual Studio team
Fix the bug

Related

Any quick ways to downgrade Visual Studio Ultimate/Enterprise edition to Professional?

I have Visual Studio Ultimate/Enterprise installed from a previous engagement. I've now started at a new place who only have licenses form VS Professional. So I need to downgrade but the supported route involves full uninstall and full reinstall which is obviously rather time consuming.
Are there any "clever" (probably unsupported) ways to do the downgrade?
It is not possible to downgrade an installation, as they are different products and can exist side by side. The components downloaded and installed for each product are different.
If you had previously installed VS Pro, as I had, you might be able to go to "Add/Remove Programs" and select "Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise with Updates." Modify->Uninstall worked perfectly for me. Be sure to backup any settings, as some of mine got reset. My extensions stayed the same, though. To be clear, I had VS Pro first, and I installed Enterprise Evaluation side-by-side with it.
I'm in a similar situation, unfortunately there's no supported option besides the uninstall/reinstall route you've already mentioned. You could probably save some time by backing up all your extensions and settings etc. The processes outlined below might be different for more recent versions but I think the process would be similar
Backup and restore settings
Backup and restore extensions
Edit:
This is pretty weird, I'm starting to think that perhaps Drunken Code Monkey's solution is more accurate than I initially thought. I was expecting to have to follow the same process as Schneider described (uninstall / full reinstall), but as soon as the uninstall of VS Enterprise finished, I was able to open VS Pro as normal.
Edit 2:
Turns out it was not as normal, a bunch of things didn't work (creating ASP.NET MVC projects) and I had to do a repair. Not quite as bad as a full reinstall, fortunately.
Just had to do this. You must first uninstall the enterprise edition. Visual Stuido Installer will complete the uninstall and when it's finished will prompt if you'd like to install a different version, such as Community.
Down Grade visual studio from enterprise to Professional
we can download separate professional version of Visual studio EXE.
Professional and enterprise run side by side in our machine but need separate 2 license for those 2.
if you want to downgrade you visual studio from Enterprise to professional just need to install EXe using below link
https://my.visualstudio.com/downloads?pid=2234.

Visual studio closes when debugging (after install update 2)

I just installed the visual studio update 2 on two computers and now when I try to debug my program, the visual studio closes!!
It doesn't show any exception, just closes.
What should I do? I tried to reinstall the visual studio and install again but I got the same problem.
According to Marc Paine (Visual Studio Debugger QA Lead):
You are using the Visual Web Devleoper version of VS, correct? If so, we have a known bug in this CTP only affecting VWD. You can copy symsvr.dll from any other install of VS (other express versions or pro) into the common7\ide directory for VWD. That should fix the problem. We have fixed this problem already and it should be avialable in the next CTP.
Unfortunately it doesn't worked for me... so I tell it in the support forum but Microsoft just marked my feedback as closed and didn't answer me anymore...
So unfortunately my solution was formatting my computer.
It's a CTP right now, which isn't really supposed to be stable; on the contrary - it has experimental features. So it shouldn't really surprise you that it crashes. Gather as much data as possible and send it to Microsoft; hopefully they'll fix it.

Creating Project Fails in Visual Studio 2005 and VS2008

Every time I try to create a new project or solution in visual studio (2005 and 2008), I get an error saying, "Project Creation failed." I even tried running vs in administrative mode, but I still get the same answer. Anyone have any suggestions, in short of uninstalling all of VS and reinstalling it?
It sounds like an Add-in behaving badly. Can you launch it in safe mode?
devenv.exe /SafeMode
Out of the blue i would guess a security/rights issue, eg. trying to create the solution on a drive/folder you don't have write access to, or has otherwise restricted rights.
Is it in Vista, I know 2005 is known to have compatibility issues in Vista, dunno about 2008, but do they both have current updates?
If you are running in administrator mode, and click run as administrator and have all the latest updates and no add-ins, I think you might have to reinstall it. Make sure you select all the development types you plan to use to get the sdks and not just the redistributables.
If that doesn't work, you might talk to the microsoft reps. With some quick online research people really only had probelms like this before Visual Studio SP1, anything with 64 bit Vista has just been unable to compile ASP.
Good luck.

What's required for a clean uninstall of Visual Studio 2005

Due to continuing crash problems, I'm about to uninstall and reinstall my copy of Visual Studio 2005. I know that just running the uninstaller leaves a lot of resources and settings on my machine and would like to be able to reinstall from a pristine state.
Is there any way to completely uninstall VS2k5 from my machine so that it's as if it was never there?
Visual Studio 2005 is known for not uninstalling so well (especially the Express editions). Use the technique found here to manually uninstall all of Visual Studio.
sure, it starts with 'format c:' :)
Seriously though, I've had that type of issue with various MS products. Clean uninstalls are almost impossible because even windows hasn't kept track of what shared DLLs were installed by VS2005. You could try installing VS express, hope that it overwrites whatever problem is there, and then reinstall VS2005, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it working.
The other possibility is that it's something local to your user. You could try moving your folder under documents and settings and getting it to regenerate and see if that works...
A hell of a lot of luck. I have tried many times to pull this off and each time I ended up just restoring to before I installed it or doing a fresh install.
If DevStudio is crashing a lot on you, you might try uninstalling any add-ins and extensions as a first step.
It might save you a lot of pain.
Rebuild your machine. Things just get mucked up after a while, and in the process you'll clean out all the muck you've accumulated in Windows in addition to the Visual Studio muck. It seems harsh, but after you do it a couple times it's really faster, less painful, and more complete than trying to track down a bunch of random issues.
Aaron Stebner's WebLog has a link to a specialist uninstaller for VS2005 here. More straight forward than the official MS solution of downloading MSIZap.exe and the Windows Server 2003 SDK.

Visual Studio setup problem - 'A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.'

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

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