Visual Studio Error: Sorry, something went wrong - The install operation failed

Question

I am trying to modify my Visual Studio by adding Python development and Node.js Development, but it keeps saying "Sorry, something went wrong - The install operation failed" and it doesn't download and install these features.

Same happens when I'm trying to uninstall already installed elements like .NET desktop development or when I'm trying to uninstall Visual Studio or repair it.

I have tried multiple solutions, but all of them didn't work unfortunately.

Can anyone help me please? I would really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Televise

Many conditions may cause this issue, please make sure that there isn’t any other antivirus software/group policy/extension which impacts the installation, and check if there are any pending Windows Updates(if yes, updating Windows OS first). Also please reboot your machine and try again. If you can collect the VS setup log, it will be useful to check the details of this error. – Doone

Answer 1

The installer downloaded a vs_setup_boostrapper.exe to %temp%\vs\setup<random> directory. If you run that file manually, then it will get past the roadblock and popup a dialog that tells you you're missing a required --productid parameter. Ignore that, exit, and then kill any setup.exe processes still running. (For me the vs installer locks up when it fails, and always has two setup.exe processes that must be killed.) At this point you can just run the vs installer normally, and it will work correctly.

Actinochemistry

Can confirm that this actually works (at least for me). Thank you @Actinochemistry for answering this older question. – Gona

This worked for me. I was constantly getting the Sorry, something went wrong error in the visual studio installer when doing any update or modification. – Potts

win+R and run %temp%\vs\setup to get there quickly – Claxton

Thank you so much @justinMichel! MS Support was not any help. – Bevan

weirdly enough this actually works to unlock the visual studio installer :) – Employment

Worked perfectly.. I had an error something along the lines of, the source path character is more than 80 characters when trying to run vs_setup_bootstrapper.exe from %temp%\vs\setup. So I copied that folder to `C:` and ran and followed the instructions in the answer. – Abound

File did exist but got the same error as @AbdulHameed. Moving the file fixed this, however this dit not unlock the installation. The solution of Uttam worked, just downloaded a new installer and it was unlocked and I could use visual studio again. – Balduin

Worked for me as well for VS 2022! This needs to be marked as accepted answer. Only thing was I needed to rename that GUID folder to something of minimum character length, run the 'vs_setup_bootstrapper.exe' and then rename back the folder... – Armitage

Answer 2

download the latest version https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/

of same visual studio installer and install (only installer). thats it.

Everard

I didn't have a vs_setup_boostrapper.exe in my temp directory (as referenced in the top answer), but this answer worked. The downloaded installer ran no problem. – Baldheaded

I did have the file in my temp directory but running it did not unlock my visual studio. Downloading the installer and running it fixed it for me, thanks! – Balduin

no effect, same thing – Assembled

Answer 3

I met the same problem and finally found that there was an extra space in the path of download cache. The path is even default that I haven't change.enter image description here

Boyles