Visual Studio 2010 throws package load errors on launch and creation of new project fails

ISSUE DESCRIPTION:

Visual Studio 2010 throws package load errors on launch and creation of new project in fails with more errors

ENVIRONMENT:

This is applicable to both 32 bit and 64 bit machines, running Windows 8/Widows 7/ Server 2012/ Server 2008/ Windows Server2003/ Windows XP

Symptom and inference :

Here is the error message that you will notice on launching Visual Studio:

Also, when you still go ahead and try to create a new project, it immediately fails with these error messages:

This happens because of Visual Studio is trying to load extensions that do no exist on the machine! (Well, at least not at the path that it is looking at).

Also, you will notice that in the IDE the Extension manager cannot be accessed. You get this error:

Resolution:

To resolve this, navigate following registry key, and make sure that the given paths (string values listed under this key) are valid.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ExtensionManager\EnabledExtensions

Alternately, you can just disable the extension if path does not exist if you are unsure of what the exact path needs to be. Later of course you can get this extension installed back again.

Here is how I was able to reproduce the issue, by prefixing the key under EnabledExtensions with ‘old_’

Content by

Ritwik Sinha