Visual Studio 2010 Toolbox controls disabled

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VS 2010 Toolbox in ASP.NET application development (design mode or source) is not showing all controls (showing HTML and reporting ones), I can see all by right click (Show all) but they are greyed out or inactive.

I have used devnev.exe in VS Command line to reset, have reinstalled VS, have deleted the four hidden files in C:\Users\Ramzan\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0 with extension .tbd, all in vain.

This thing is driving me mad. I have another machine and everything works fine there.
Any help much appreciated.

Ferial answered 15/1, 2012 at 17:0 Comment(12)

Is this in a web site (File->New Web Site), or a web application project (File->New Project)? – Battalion 15/1, 2012 at 17:10

in both sir, i am cluless have done a lot of googling , still clueless – Ferial 15/1, 2012 at 17:12

What do you mean, "in both"? Do you have the problem if you create a new web application project? – Battalion 15/1, 2012 at 17:13

in both means i have same problem in web application or website. your toolbox controls are inactive. – Ferial 15/1, 2012 at 17:18

If you actually started from a new VS instance, created a new Web Application Project, switch to design mode, and all of your toolbox items are disabled, and if it all works on a different computer, then I'd say you need a new computer. Otherwise tell us the exact steps you took, because this doesn't make sense in general. – Battalion 15/1, 2012 at 17:23

very funny..my other machine is a samll portable notbook where it works fine but main machine is a very power pc, its nothing to do with pc , i think i just messed up somewhere. anyway thx for yr help. – Ferial 15/1, 2012 at 17:25

This is my point. You haven't told us what you did, starting from the very beginning. Do that, with a brand new project, in the simplest manner possible, and see if you still have the problem. If you do, then please post the steps. – Battalion 15/1, 2012 at 17:27

well if u read my question description, you should understand if someone running devenv.exe or deleting.tbd files, he is not that stupid who cant even make a new project. I done file-> new website and the problem still persists. – Ferial 15/1, 2012 at 17:35

No, it's not a question of stupidity, just of making a mistake you can't see. Any help you receive will be due to someone else seeing what you cannot. But you'll have to show us what you did if you want us to see what you did wrong. – Battalion 15/1, 2012 at 18:22

You probably already know that if you create an asp.net project, you will not be able use Windows forms controls...they should be disabled even if you force their toolbox to appear. – Cid 15/1, 2012 at 18:47

@Steve you have some weight , when i try to do show all , most of them are not related to web devlopment mate, but again i tried to put gridview in source view and through samrt tag when you are about to select a data source, that empty. there is no flippin source option. i think i need to get a new fresh copy. – Ferial 15/1, 2012 at 19:35

See some answers to a similar question here: #4831989 – Hiatt 16/1, 2012 at 18:42

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Don't know if this applies; but I had all controls in the toolbox disabled; you could see them but they were disabled - This in Visual Studio 2010. I right click on a toolbox item then reset toolbox and then they are enabled. Note that you may lose any custom controls you added.

Twilley answered 31/1, 2012 at 5:0 Comment(1)

This fix applied to a dialog in an MFC based project using Visual Studio 2012. – Insult 21/6, 2013 at 17:14

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Probably your project is RUNNING. STOP the project then your toolbar items will become enable.

Audit answered 21/4, 2014 at 18:43 Comment(0)

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Right click in toolbox and remove check from "SHOW ALL" (if checked)

Lymphocyte answered 10/9, 2013 at 18:24 Comment(0)

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This was driving me crazy for a pair of days. In the choose items menu my 3rd party controls (CrystalReportsViewer) were checked. Reset toolbox did nothing to enable them. My solution was changing the target framework from .NET Framework 4 Client Profile to the full version .NET Framework 4, seems the client profile which is a subset of the version optimized for client applications does not support my controls or just using references to other 3rd party .dll librarys. This issue should only be for .NET 3.5 and 4.0, Client Profile is discontinued for .NET 4.5

Hoyos answered 27/11, 2012 at 8:43 Comment(0)

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I had the same problem and fixed it now after 3 days:

reset toolbox (not worked)
close and reopen the solution (not worked)
close and reopen the VS (it worked!)

Optician answered 3/10, 2013 at 11:14 Comment(1)

haha yup... ty for answer I almsot made it a bigger problem than it is – Fauver 14/2, 2017 at 13:28

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After a long time googling , and mostly all answers - revolving around

Reset Toolbar
Delete .tbd files from C:\Users(your user)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0
Using devenv.exe /SafeMode & devenv.exe /ResetSettings.

None of them working out for me, making me more sick.

There is something I did which worked and thought it's worth sharing if it helps someone.

I followed all of the above steps, failing . I did Step 1 & 2 with my project (in VS 2012) open and

Right Click on Toolbox > Choose Items > Pressed Reset > ok.
Then again, Right Click on Toolbox > Add Tab > 'gave it some name' > then again
Reset Toolbox

There was some screen flash/flickering - some loading .

And to my surprise the Grey life ( grey controls ) were now available .

Hope this helps someone like me! :)

Masurium answered 11/8, 2014 at 6:57 Comment(0)

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This worked for me..

How to completely reset the Toolbox and enable Visual Studio to rebuild it from scratch

Close Visual Studio;
Open the "c:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0" (Windows 7) folder and remove all the .TBD files;
Run the "regedit" tool. For this click the "Run" item in the Start menu and type "regedit" without quotation marks;
Find the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ToolboxControlsInstaller_AssemblyFoldersExCache" and "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ToolboxControlsInstallerCache" keys;
Remove everything from these keys leaving them empty;
Run Visual Studio again and wait until it recreates all items in the Toolbox.

Allisan answered 25/3, 2016 at 5:26 Comment(0)

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If you are working in WPF application and your Xaml is opened with xml, then make sure you right click and view designer, to get your toolbox controls enabled. (Toolbox controls seem to be active(enabled) only in designer mode). At least that was the case with me.

Cinch answered 11/6, 2015 at 1:14 Comment(1)

It might seem obvious but if the Designer is disabled in the Visual Studio options then the toolbox items will always be grayed out. – Loki 11/1, 2019 at 22:58

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I know this is old but I just encountered the same problem and here is what I did:

Click on Data Flow
Right click anywhere in that window
Select SSIS Toolbox.

Hope this would help someone.

Harumscarum answered 29/3, 2016 at 19:57 Comment(0)

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I worked for me doing the following steps:

Reset Toolbox (Right click in Toolbox->Reset Toolbox)
Add a new tab with any name (Right click in Toolbox->Add Tab)
Reset Toolbox (Right click in Toolbox->Reset Toolbox)

Burdensome answered 4/8, 2016 at 6:55 Comment(0)

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What helped me was changing Project type from Windows Application to Class Library - then (after re-build and reopen...) I got all Controls Enabled.

Coopt answered 14/3, 2017 at 8:10 Comment(0)

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What did it for me on a custom control was to first remove the control from my base project. Then I had to pull up the custom control as a separate solution by itself and recompile it. I had to make sure that that it was compiled as a class library and not as a windows application. I had to make sure that it was compiled with Framework 4 (same as my base solution) and that all sub controls and projects were also using framework 4. Once I got all of those things sorted out I went back to my base project and added the newly compiled control and sure enough it was enabled.

I hope this helps someone.

Sialkot answered 10/11, 2017 at 18:47 Comment(0)

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I tried all the above mentioned still not working for me. I was working on a windows application after that I have started the web application coding on visual studio after that whenever I was opening the Visual studio this problem was occurring. I am using Visual studio 2015. So what I did, I have right-click inside the toolbox panel and selected 'choose option' then under '.Net framework' components tab I have checked all check boxes for which assembly name is 'System.windows.forms' It is working for me now.

Briannabrianne answered 26/11, 2020 at 14:1 Comment(0)

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Make sure the currently opened solution platform actually supports controls you need. My problem was, for example, that I tried to add 'SqlConnection' control to .NET 6.0 application. Once, I created a '.NET Framework Windows Form' project 'SqlConnection' control became available

Collimate answered 28/6, 2022 at 18:4 Comment(0)

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I had this problem with VS2022 version 17.5.1 enterprise edition. I solved it as follows:

Right click the toolbox menu, select "choose items..."
In the ".NET Framework Components" tab, I unchecked all controls except those that belong to System.Windows.Froms
Close the dialog with OK

After that all WinForms disabled controls were enabled

Grapher answered 14/3, 2023 at 9:7 Comment(0)

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