Develop Reference

Missing Browserlink in VS2019, Where is browserlink acquired / loaded from normally?

My local install of VS2019 (16) seems to be missing references to BrowserLink. I've tried repairing the installation, and installing multiple different SDK's to no avail.
Where is BrowserLink normally located? And what is the mechanism that causes it to be loaded in development versions? It doesn't seem to be packaged seperately from VS since version 12, unless you are using the new .net core versions.
We have checked the GAC, NuGET, and are running out of options.
It's a .net 4.5 project, if that's relevent.
Could not locate assembly Microsoft.WebTools.BrowserLink.Runtime, Version=16.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a in the Assembly Stores configured. Requesting assembly:
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Exception: Could not locate assembly Microsoft.WebTools.BrowserLink.Runtime, Version=16.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a in the Assembly Stores configured. Requesting assembly:
The root cause is almost certainly something to do with the dumb way this project has a shared non-standard assembly cache, and doesn't fallback to normal dev locations, but the question is about what the normal location/mechanism is for BrowserLink (16) to be loaded.

If you have installed your VS2019 in default options, you can find the Browser Link library files in this path:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Web Tools\Browser Link
(Replace the path of your installation location as appropriate)
You can then decide whether to copy Microsoft.WebTools.BrowserLink.*.dll to the assembly cache of your application or include this path in your application.

NanoFramework Device Explorer would not open

I was able to use nanoframework normally but somehow the DeviceExplorer no longer opens now.
I checked the ActivityLog.xml and it shows the following error:
819 ERROR SetSite failed for package [Visual Studio 2019 extension for nanoFramework. Enables creating C# Solutions to be deployed to a target board and provides debugging tools.]Source: 'nanoFramework.Tools.VS2019.Extension' Description: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Threading, Version=16.9.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Threading, Version=16.9.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. File name: 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Threading, Version=16.9.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'at nanoFramework.Tools.VisualStudio.Extension.NanoFrameworkPackage.<InitializeAsync>d__65.MoveNext()at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.AsyncTaskMethodBuilder.Start[TStateMachine](TStateMachine& stateMachine)at nanoFramework.Tools.VisualStudio.Extension.NanoFrameworkPackage.InitializeAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken, IProgress`1 progress)at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.AsyncPackage.<>c__DisplayClass20_0.<<Microsoft-VisualStudio-Shell-Interop-IAsyncLoadablePackageInitialize-Initialize>b__1>d.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VsTask.RethrowException(AggregateException e)at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VsTask.InternalGetResult(Boolean ignoreUIThreadCheck)at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VsTask.GetResult() WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF. To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1. Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging. To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog]. {046B40EB-1DE1-4D08-AF61-FDB7592B9BBD} 80070002 VisualStudio 2021/03/21 07:18:45.265
820 ERROR End package load [Visual Studio 2019 extension for nanoFramework. Enables creating C# Solutions to be deployed to a target board and provides debugging tools.] {046B40EB-1DE1-4D08-AF61-FDB7592B9BBD} 80070002 VisualStudio 2021/03/21 07:18:45.270
I want to highlight that my Visual Studio nanoframework extension is set to update automatically and it sounds like it recently got updated to 2019.5.0.34
I am using Visual Studio Profession 2019 16.8.3
Disabling/Enabling the extension, restarting the visual studio did not help.
Any clue what could be causing this issue?

You should update Visual Studio to 16.9 or higher.

Visual Studio UI Testing

I have done some extravagant web searching for a solution to no avail.
I am working with a UI tester written by a man who is no longer with the company.
Currently it is hanging up on opening the browser for testing the website.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
BrowserWindow.CurrentBrowser = "ie";
"An unhandled exception of type 'System.IO.FileNotFoundException' occurred in Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITesting.dll
Additional information: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITest.WindowsStoreUtility, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified."

Figured out what the issue is. I can't run it directly. I have to pass it to MSTest.exe with arguments.
If you don't know where MSTest.exe is, here is where mine is, and most likely yours.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe

Visual Studio Error - FSharp.Core, Version=4.3.1.0

I have encountered a very iritating problem using Visual Studio 2017 Community. When downloading any package from NPM (here for example System.Web.Http.Common) every time I get this error:
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file 'FSharp.Core, Version=4.3.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies.
My project does not have any Fsharp files, it is pure ASP.NET project.
Update of VS did not help.
What am I supposed to do?

Could not load file or assembly System, Version=2.0.5.0 in .NET 4 MVC 4 application

Been searching for ages, can't find anything helpful. Here is the exception I'm getting:
Could not load file or assembly 'System, Version=2.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cec85d7bea7798e, Retargetable=Yes' or one of its dependencies. The given assembly name or codebase was invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131047)
Exception Details: System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'System, Version=2.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cec85d7bea7798e, Retargetable=Yes' or one of its dependencies. The given assembly name or codebase was invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131047)
Stack Trace:
[FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'System, Version=2.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cec85d7bea7798e, Retargetable=Yes' or one of its dependencies. The given assembly name or codebase was invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131047)]
StructureMap.Graph.PluginGraph..ctor() in c:\BuildAgent\work\996e173a8ceccdca\src\StructureMap\Graph\PluginGraph.cs:41
StructureMap.PluginGraphBuilder..ctor() in c:\BuildAgent\work\996e173a8ceccdca\src\StructureMap\PluginGraphBuilder.cs:22
StructureMap.InitializationExpression..ctor() in c:\BuildAgent\work\996e173a8ceccdca\src\StructureMap\InitializationExpression.cs:22
StructureMap.ObjectFactory.Initialize(Action`1 action) in c:\BuildAgent\work\996e173a8ceccdca\src\StructureMap\ObjectFactory.cs:47
...
This applications works fine on the test server but is throwing this exception on the production server. As you can see, the StructureMap code is what is causing the exception.
I had to convert this app to .NET 4 from 4.5 because 4.5 wasn't installed on the production server. After the conversion, the app still works fine on my local machine and the test server.
I have already set the Copy Local to True for the System assembly, but since the referenced version is 4.0.0.0 and not 2.0.5.0, I this made no difference.
Let me know if any more info is needed. Any help you may be able to provide is appreciated.

Make sure your .NET framework is patched. Microsoft released patches to .NET to allow Portable Class Libraries to properly find the appropriate runtime (KB2468871). If you are seeing the above exception (or something like it), it means you're missing the latest .NET framework patches.

Edit the web.config file to remove the reference, which is not required for normal operation:
1 - Open the web.config file in the root of your site
2 - Find the following line and comment it out():xxxxx-is your assembly name.
<add assembly="xxxxx", Version=2.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
3 - Save and close the web.config file and try again

I found that it was the "await" and "async" that where giving me trouble.
I had Windows XP SP3 with only .NET 4.0, but had to update it to .NET 4.0.3 using KB2600211 - this wasn't updated automatically through Windows Update when .NET 4.0.3 came out because the computer is off-grid.
This is the link to the update:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29053

I just want to share another solution from here that solved the problem on my development machine: installing Silverlight 5 SDK (only 11.2MB at the time of writing this post) was enough to make everything working.

Install Microsoft® Silverlight® 5 SDK from the following link. It resolves and works fine for me.
SDK download

Starting from a machine configuration that only had VS2017 and Silverlight 5 SDK on it, I installed VS2015 on top of that. This is when I started getting the System.Core and System.Windows problems.
When I uninstalled VS2015 and re-installed Silverlight 5 SDK, these problems went away.