LightSwitch Extensibility Toolkit for Visual Studio 2012 Failing With a Generic Error message

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Issue Description:

Installation of LightSwitch Extensibility Toolkit for Visual Studio 2012 Failing With a Generic Error message dialog box

Environment:

Windows 7 SP1 (x86 and x64)

Windows 8 (x86 and x64)

Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64)

Windows Server 2012 (x64)

Symptom and inference :

Download LightSwitch Extensibility Toolkit for Visual Studio 2012 from https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/2381b03b-5c71-4847-a58e-5cfa48d418dc and launch the installation via the , ideally by extracting the Microsoft.LightSwitch.Toolkit.exe file and launching the Microsoft.LightSwitch.Toolkit.vsix file-

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The installation might fail within a couple of minutes from the launch with the following screen-

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The above error message is indeed generic and does not really tell you about the exact point of failure.

However, if you take a look at the detailed log under the  %temp% folder (start >> run >> %temp%), it will provide you with the required details. Sample excerpt-

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03-Sep-13 11:33:40 PM - Beginning to install extension to Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2012...

03-Sep-13 11:33:40 PM - Install Error : Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.MissingReferencesException: This extension cannot be installed because the following references are missing:

- Microsoft Visual Studio SDK

   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionManagerService.CheckForInstallBlockers(InstallableExtensionImpl extension, IInstalledExtensionList modifiedInstalledExtensionsList, Boolean isNestedExtension, Boolean& olderVersionInstalled)

   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionManagerService.InstallInternal(InstallableExtensionImpl extension, Boolean perMachine, Boolean isNestedExtension, IDictionary`2 extensionsInstalledSoFar, List`1 extensionsUninstalledSoFar, IInstalledExtensionList modifiedInstalledExtensionsList, AsyncOperation asyncOp, UInt64 totalBytesToWrite, UInt64& totalBytesWritten)

   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionManagerService.BeginInstall(IInstallableExtension installableExtension, Boolean perMachine, AsyncOperation asyncOp)

   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.ExtensionManagerService.InstallWorker(IInstallableExtension extension, Boolean perMachine, AsyncOperation asyncOp)

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Resolution:

As is now apparent from the log above, you need to have Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 SDK installed. You can get this installed from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=30668

Once this is done, you can re-launch the setup for the extension and this time it should run through successfully.

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Content by: Ritwik Sinha