Why is Visual Studio not able to open .csproj files?

Question

I have the odd problem that I am not able to open the properties of my .NET projects in Visual Studio. If I try to open it by clicking on the Properties tree node in the Solution Explorer I get the following message:

There is no editor available for '....csproj'. Make sure the application for the file type (.csproj) is installed.

If I try to open the project properties by the main menu nothing happens at all.

I already tried to reset the Visual Studio settings by command line and a repair installation but nothing helped so far.

I use the Visual Studio 2008 in version 9.0.30729.1 SP including the XNA Game Studio 3.0, ReSharper 4.1 and Visual SVN 1.5.1.

It is occurring on all my projects and seems to be a local issue because my co-workers do not have this kind of problem.

Help is much appreciated!

Thanks, Michael

Tarpon

Does it complain when you open a solution that has C# projects in it? – Garofalo

Closing and reopening VS worked for me. Will probably only work in some cases, but always worth trying first. – Wetzel

Answer 1

Repair installation doesn't worked as I mentioned in my question. The problem was solved by using the command line with

devenv /ResetSkipPkgs

BUT after that I had to reset some of my Resharper settings.

Tarpon

Thank you! I spent almost a day trying to fix this problem with unistallations and re-installations, with no luck. – Particulate

For those wondering, this is still a valid solution in VS 2015. +1 – Catalano

"using the command line" - where? I tried this in the Windows command line, and also I found a command line in VS, and both told me that devenv wasn't recognized... – Marlborough

@SeanKendle dude, the question is from 2009 for VS 2008 ;) There is no dedicated VS command prompt anymore. Use powershell and go to the folder where the devenv.exe is located. – Tarpon

And my question was from April, I've since moved on. Thanks though. – Marlborough

Answer 2

I had the same issue. tried running "devenv /ResetSkipPkgs", repairing the installation ... with no luck.

I opened the .csproj file (in a text editor), and looked for all References in the csproj file. Apparantly, i found the line where it references MVC 1.0 (which i havent installed assuming MVC 2.0 would be backward compatible!?)

i installed MVC 1.0, and boom ... it works!

just check for all references in the .csproj file, and install them as needed.

Boccherini

Answer 3

Do you have SQL Server installed? If so are you accidentally opening the project with the VS2005 shell that's installed as part of SQL Server?

Hertel

SQL Server is installed, thats right but I didn't open the solution with the shell. The sln should in my case be opened by the VS Version Selector. – Tarpon

Yeah but sometimes the Version Selector gets it wrong. I've had it happen to me alot. Make sure the project is being opened in 2008 not 2005. – Hertel

Answer 4

Sounds to me like you need to do a full uninstall and reinstall from scratch. You've likely lost some setting or corrupted some registry key. You can either fish around until you find your errant setting, or you can spend the time to just reinstall.

Don't do a repair install. Remove VS (and the other programs/utilities you mentioned) from your machine and do a clean install.

Cryptonym

Answer 5

Open up the .csproj in notepad and check the <ProjectTypeGuids> tag, if it exists then you may not have one of the project types installed.

Debatable

Answer 6

If none of the above answers work, you can also launch again the installer, choose “remove or add functionalities”, and add all “additional language tools” available for “Visual C#“ in the functionalities list. For instance in my case I was missing "Visual studio tools for office" that was needed to allow the .csproj to be opened.

Jacquelynejacquelynn

Answer 7

I had the same issue when i un-installed an extension from the extensions and updates. I tried all the options mentioned above but no luck. It showed me xamarin shell package did not load correctly every time i tried to load the app.

Then the issue was resolved by Repairing the Xamarin.VisualStudio using the Xamarin.VisualStudio_<version>.msi.. By this .csproj issue will be resolved.

German