VS 2017 - Package Management Initialization Failed

Question

_{Monday, September 18, 2017 5:40 AM | 2 votes}

Hi All,

I have been using VS2017 for a couple of weeks and this morning I am unable to start it. I get a error message;

Package management initialization failed: Access Denied.

You can get more information by examining the file C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.076f85e7a\ActivityLox.xml

I have looked at the log and it doesn't have any helpful in it.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

All replies (6)

_{Tuesday, September 19, 2017 8:20 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote}

Hi Cameronh,

Thank you for posting in MSDN forum.

Is your OS Win 7?

Please see: Access Denied error creating registry keys on Windows 7

This is a new random corruption issue of the private registry file on Windows 7 and Microsoft Visual Studio product team is investigating for a fix. Please wait patiently till next version releasing to fix this issue.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best Regards,

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].

_{Monday, October 2, 2017 10:50 PM}

Yes I am using windows 7, i will wait for a patch cheers.

_{Monday, October 23, 2017 10:50 PM | 1 vote}

Deleting privateregistry.bin and restarting VS works

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/31263/vs2017-fails-to-start-with-unknown-error.html 

Tres Oliver

_{Monday, December 4, 2017 11:40 PM | 1 vote}

This error happens to me consistently if I have an instance of Visual Studio running as administrator and then try to launch an instance of Visual Studio without administrator rights. I've found that once I launch an instance with administrator rights, I have to launch all instances of Visual Studio with administrator rights.

_{Wednesday, February 7, 2018 11:31 PM}

Running with administrator rights solved my problem, was exactly this one

Microsoft Visual Studio

Unknown Error.

You can get more information by examining the file:
C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_90e8716f\ActivityLog.xml

Thanks!

_{Wednesday, August 29, 2018 1:05 PM | 2 votes}

Hi,

This issue is still around in the latest update, perhaps under different conditions. In my case I get this error every morning when I come into work and try to start up a new instance of Visual Studio while another one is open on a different solution.

I can open and close instances of VS all day long with no problem. BTW, I always open VS in Administrator mode. But the next day, I will get this error if I try to open a new one, or close one and re-open it.

The issue goes away if I close ALL open instances of VS and then start over. Then I have no problem for the rest of the day.

The activity log shows that it is failing while trying to open a package definition files located in its own Program Files folder:

<entry>
    <record>35</record>
    <time>2018/08/29 12:42:58.360</time>
    <type>Information</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>Importing pkgdef file</description>
    <path>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\master.pkgdef</path>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>36</record>
    <time>2018/08/29 12:42:58.360</time>
    <type>Information</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>Importing pkgdef file</description>
    <path>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\Extensions\ClassDesigner_REG_27921.3643236F_FC70_11D3_A536_0090278A1BB8.pkgdef</path>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>37</record>
    <time>2018/08/29 12:42:58.360</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>Failed to process PkgDef file</description>
    <hr>80070005 - E_ACCESSDENIED</hr>
    <errorinfo></errorinfo>
    <path>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\Extensions\ClassDesigner_REG_27921.3643236F_FC70_11D3_A536_0090278A1BB8.pkgdef</path>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>38</record>
    <time>2018/08/29 12:42:58.360</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>PkgDef loading aborted</description>
    <hr>80070005 - E_ACCESSDENIED</hr>
    <errorinfo></errorinfo>
  </entry>

Any hope of this being resolved soon? It is driving me nuts! :-)

Thanks,

Chaz