Re: Visual Studio 2019: Cannot create new project or load existing project

Article
2019-06-11

Question

_{Tuesday, June 11, 2019 2:03 PM}

When VS 2017 ver. 15.9.12 was released just a few weeks ago, I decided to upgrade my VS 2017 to this latest version. The install was successful without any issues. However, it blew up the ability to compile a single project. Every project compiled and failed; yet there were never any errors even when I turned on the diagnostic output to review the build information.

Growing frustrated with trying to VS 2017 to work as it had been, I decided to try VS 2019 ver. 16.2 (the latest to my knowledge). Again the install went in smoothly and without any errors. However, this time instead of being unable to compile a project, VS 2019 could not create a new project or load an existing one without throwing the following error; “Tools version 15.0 not recognized”.

I have been trying to get either VS 2017 or 2019 to work on my Windows 10 Workstation but all of my efforts have failed. Since I am using the Community Edition, there has been only so much technical support I could obtain… And I did everything the technical support I was able to contact told me to do to resolve the issue including 2 system scans , both of which only showed that my OS was completely clean.

Has anyone come across such issues and if so are you aware of the resolutions. So far, Microsoft has not answered anyone on the forums who has had similar issues.

So far I re-installed my version of VS 2015, which is working just fine.

Thank you...

All replies (11)

_{Wednesday, June 12, 2019 8:20 AM}

Hi Steve,

Welcome to the MSDN forum.

According to your description about VS 2017, it is better to check the detail information in the “output” window, please follow the steps as below:

open the menu ”Tools” and select “Options”
choose “Projects and solutions”->”Build and Run”
select “Detailed” in “MSBuild project build output verbosity”

Therefore, you can know the detail steps when the system try to build a project and the error message.

For the problem about VS2019, do you means create a new project or open the existing projects, you will get the error message ” Tools version 15.0 not recognized”? If so, you can try these steps:

SET MSBUILD_EXE_PATH "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe".
- Right click the icon “PC”-->Open the “System Properties” -->Advanced
- Choose “Environment Variables”-->System variables-->”path” then click “edit”
- Click “New” and input the order as l provided --> click “ok”.
Use Vs repair tool to fix it
- Open the tool ”Visual Studio Installer” ->“More”--> “Repair”
Clean the VS cache folder ” %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Visual Studio\ xxxx like(14.0/15.0_xxxx/16.0_xxx)\ComponentModelCache”

Best regards,

Sara

MSDN Community Support Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" the responses that resolved your issue, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if not. This can be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. If you have any compliments or complaints to MSDN Support, feel free to contact [email protected]

_{Wednesday, June 12, 2019 6:34 PM}

Sara...

Thank you very much for your suggestions in resolving this issue. And it is VS 2019 I am having the tools version error.

I have another question regarding this. You recommend that I reset the environment variable for the MSBuild tool to the following...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe

I am using the Community Edition of VS 2019 and the corresponding directory only has the following 2 DLLs in it...

Microsoft.DiaSymReader.Native.amd64.dll

Microsoft.DiaSymReader.Native.x86.dll

These 2 assemblies come under the added sub-directory of "Roslyn".

The MSBuild tools appear to be in the following sub-directory...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin

Which sub-directory then should I reset the environment variable to?

Thank you again... :-)

_{Thursday, June 13, 2019 9:08 AM}

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your detail information.

Yes, the location insides my reply is an example, you can try to target to your directory that the MSBuild tools is existing.

Best regards,

Sara

_{Thursday, June 13, 2019 3:08 PM}

Hi Sara...

I tried implementing your recommendation in several ways, including the repair and cache cleaning recommendations, but they all failed still providing me with the same error message as it pertains to an unrecognized tools version.

My first attempt was to enter the full path to the system variable, "PATH", as an additional path. When that did not yield a good result, I then added the following as a new system variable...

system variable name: MSBUILD_EXE_PATH

path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe

I tried this in two ways; first without the MSBuild.exe as part of the path and then with it.

These two attempts also yielded the same tools version error.

However, there was an added piece of text to the error messages I received this time... Please note below...

The tools version "15.0" is unrecognized". The available versions are "Current", "14.0", "2.0", "3.5", "4.0".

Even if I try to create a project with the lower versions of the .NET Framework, the same error always appears and this is for any type of project I attempt to create.

Also, if I check the build version for VS 2019, I get the following...

>>>

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community>msbuild /version
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.1.76+g14b0a930a7 for .NET Framework
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

15.7.179.6572
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community>

<<<

As I understand it, the build version is supposed to be 16.x but this is never installed with any of the VS 2019 installers I have used...

:-(

_{Friday, June 14, 2019 7:33 AM}

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your feedback.

According to the error message, please check this similar issue and have a try with the following:

1. Backup and rename the folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Bin

2. If you have not remove the VS 2017, please follow the following steps to remove it and restart the PC:

delete %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_xxxx\ComponentModelCache, start VS
please follow the steps as below to clean up the installed VS and re-install it:

See if you have this file on your machine: "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\resources\app\layout\InstallCleanup.exe"
If so, please launch it from an admin command prompt with a -full param:

InstallCleanup.exe -full

If not, please manually delete the "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer” folder
Relaunch the newly downloaded vs_enterprise.exe (or vs_professional.exe or vs_community.exe…)
Allow the first step to install the installer
Once the installer comes up and you can see workload choices (.net desktop and the like), close it
Go launch the same InstallCleanup.exe to clean up old build of VS

Best regards,

Sara

_{Friday, June 14, 2019 6:05 PM}

Hi Sara...

Thank you for your additional suggestions but your current steps I have already done at least a half dozen times without any success. And I did all of these steps in numerous variations.

The only thing I haven't tried is installing VS 2019 to my "D" drive instead of allowing it to install to the default "C" drive.

In my opinion, there is something wrong with the VS 2019 Community Edition installers.

My Windows 10 system is clean and has been tested as such using the DISM and SFC utilities. It is currently at version 1803 and I have absolutely no issues with installing any other complex piece of software.

Of course, I cannot be the only person on the planet with this issue but there is something that the installer is not catching to either warn me about or correct.

From what I can see the installer is installing the wrong version of the MSBuild sub-system. And I have no idea how to correct this other than being able to speak with Microsoft technical support on this matter. However, I cannot afford to pay the monies involved. Yet, if you can relay this issue to them they may be able to shed some light on it...

_{Monday, June 17, 2019 9:23 AM}

Hi Steve,

According to your issue, the version of your MSBuild tool does not match the version of your Framework. Please try to uninstall it first and re-install it. Steps are below:

Open the vs2019 installer-->Modify-->individual components-->click the checkbox “MsBuild” and uninstall it>modify it again and check it to install

If it still not works, please feel free to let us know.

Best regards,

Sara

_{Monday, June 17, 2019 1:05 PM}

Hi Sara...

Your last suggestion also did not work and I did not see how it would since the installer would simply re-install the wrong MSBuild version.

In any event, uninstalling the MSBuild tool did more than just uninstall it; this process also uninstalled all of the project templates and never re-installed them when I selected MSBuild to re-install.

As far as I can tell, the installers for VS 2019 Community Edition do not work properly. I don't see how uninstalling and re-installing the same incorrect components will do me any good.

This is a Microsoft issue and not one I can solve...

_{Thursday, June 20, 2019 7:41 AM}

Hi Steve,

Got it, thanks for your update. Since we can successfully install and use the VS community 2019 on our computer, so we try to narrow down this issue, sorry for this inconvenience.

Please go to Help-Send Feedback-Report a problem and report this issue to the VS Product Team for better support, thanks for your understanding.

Best regards,

Sara

_{Thursday, June 20, 2019 2:40 PM}

Hi Sara...

I was able to finally resolve the issue.

The problem was all along, a dangling reference in the GAC that VS 2019 was using instead of its own internal reference for the MSBuild process. From this situation, it appears that VS 2019 would use the GAC reference over its own internal reference, making that one the priority, which is utterly ridiculous if it was not going to use the GAC for ist MSBuild tasks any longer as has been implied by documentation I have reviewed.

This issue has been a pernicious one since VS 2010 and has cropped up in various forms since the release of that version of Visual Studio.

However, since the error message provided by VS 2019 is so ambiguous and seemingly totally unrelated to the actual issue,resolving this situation was near impossible.

However, a gentleman, who simply calls himself Kim, provides the following solution that will work for those who are facing a similar issue with VS 2019.

You can see his solution at the following link...

<<<

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/515088/cannot-open-any-project-in-visual-studio-2019-the.html

>>>

You should note that there is some confusion as to how he worded is solution in that he states that the "following command" will resolve the issue. However, for an English speaker, Kim used the singular, leaving at least me to understand that he was repeating the same command 5 times in his GAC command list. Considering that people have seen such repetition on the Internet multiple time, one would not notice the misunderstanding unless that person really reads the commands he is suggesting quite closely. Then the person would see that Kim is providing 5 separate commands as follows....

<<<

gacutil.exe /u "Microsoft.Build.Framework, Version=15.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL"
gacutil.exe /u "Microsoft.Build, Version=15.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL"
gacutil.exe /u "Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core, Version=15.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL"
gacutil.exe /u "Microsoft.Build.Engine, Version=15.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL"
gacutil.exe /u "Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Core, Version=15.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL"

>>>

Visual Studio 2017 and previous versions will leave such dangling references in the GAC, so they must be removed from the GAC in order for VS 2019 to function properly.

This is a very serious issue with the VS 2019 installer since it provides no verification if such references exist and if they do, warns the user that they will be deleted if the installation is to continue.

With the ongoing development of increasingly complexities in software tools and products that Microsoft is pursuing, it can no longer leave even its free tools to the hoped for support of a vast Visual Studio Community, without the prospect of losing it to competing products.

In my testing of the new JetBrains .NET IDE, Rider, I received far better company sponsored support than is now available from Microsoft. And this will have to change if Microsoft intends to stay competitive with the international development community whether developers and software engineers are using their freely available tools or their paid versions of these products.

This is not the first time that Visual Studio installer failed to self-correct and caused me quite a nightmare in resolving a situation a while back when a VS 2017 upgrade installed a .NET Framework version, which the upgraded version of VS 2017 did not recognize. Working with Microsoft technical support, the technical representative and I were able to trace the issue all the way back to the Visual Studio Build Team at Microsoft.

I want to thank you, Sara, for all the assistance you provided in my endeavor to resolve this issue.

I am planning on writing a letter to the Office of the CEO at Microsoft to lodge a complaint about their total lack of direct support for their Visual Studio 2019 Community edition and their outrageous prices required for direct technical support to resolve what is basically their own mistakes...

For such a wealthy company they can well afford the necessary support for us software developers and engineers...

_{Tuesday, July 2, 2019 6:58 AM}

Hi Steve,

We are so glad to hear that your issue is solved and thanks for your sharing, that will help other community members who meet the similar issue in the future.

If you have any other VS installation issues, please feel free to let us know, we will try our best to help you.

Have a nice day :)

Best regards,

Sara

Share via

Re: Visual Studio 2019: Cannot create new project or load existing project

Question

All replies (11)

Additional resources