Develop Reference

Reverting C#.Net app to build as debug [duplicate]

I have completed an application I have made in Visual Studio 14.0, but when I tried to publish the program, I get an error as Visual Studio cannot find 'SignTool.exe'. I have searched my Hard drive a few times for this but it is nowhere on my PC. Can anyone help me find it or download it?

I had the same issue but installing the Windows 8.1 SDK as per Catquatwa's answer did not work for me (signtool.exe was still missing from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\vX\Bin).
I stumbled across this solution: http://www.benedykt.net/2015/08/12/missing-signtool-exe-w-visual-studio-2015/
Basically, for VS 2015, this would be:
Open Programs and Features
Select "Microsoft Visual Studio 2015" and click "Change"
Press "Modify" to progress to Features options
Select "Windows and Web Development", then tick "ClickOnce Publishing Tools" for installation
Then "Next" and then "Update"

I have a windows 7 and installing the ClickOnce Tools was not enough.
The signtool.exe appeared after also installing the sdk:

If you do not care about sign your program when you publish, just right click your project then choose Properties --> Signing --> un-check Sign the ClickOnce manifest . I had the same issue when building my program on another machine which did not have ClickOne.

The SignTool is available as part of the Windows SDK (which comes with Visual Studio Community 2015). Make sure to select the "ClickOnce Publishing Tools" from the feature list during the installation of Visual Studio 2015 to get the SignTool.
Once Visual Studio is installed you can run the signtool command from the Visual Studio Command Prompt. By default (on Windows 10) the SignTool will be installed at C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x86\signtool.exe.
ClickOnce Publishing Tools Installation:
SignTool Location:

1.Just Disable signing from the properties of your project it will solve issue :)
2.The other method is to purchase the certificate for your product from Digicert or Comodo or any other you want. You can get some free certificates for One pc use.

No Worries! I have found the solution! I just installed https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/bg162891.aspx
and it all worked fine :)

Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 8.1
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=323507
Right click on Project, select properties and Un-Check the sign on option in teh project save and re-built.
This has fixed issue for me.

Here is a solution for Visual Studio 2017. The installer looks a littlebit different from the VS 2015 version and the name of the installation packages are different.

VisualStudio 2017 Console Project template missing

Yes, i've tried devenv/install, with no help.
So, I don't have the Console C# Project option when creating the project,
as shown here
Currently i have installed windows basic pack - there's my 'about' screen.
I have just reinstalled Windows because i was getting the same exact problem on old system, and because VS2015 had interface bugs and crashed consequently, but it didn`t help(as well as reinstalling both VS 2015 and 2017 numerous times)
Hope that you can guess whats wrong with my PC.

Visual Studio 2017 setup allows you to very fine-grainedly install various "components" separately, or groups of components delivered as "workloads".
You're missing the workload named ".NET desktop development", which contains among others these project templates. So re-run setup and install that workload.

You have a link, Open Visual Studio Installer in a New Project window that will allow you modify your installed components

“This project requires a Visual Studio update to load” error when creating a Xamarin.Forms Cross-Platform Application

When I create a Xamarin.Forms application using Visual Studio Community 2015 Community on Windows 8.1 it shows me this error on load:
A problem was encountered creating the sub project 'App1.WinPhone'. This project requires a Visual Studio update to load. Right-click on the project and choose 'Download Update'
I've installed all updates available and trying on a newly installed Windows.
Note: I had this error in Forms.
How can I fix this error?
Note: There isn't a Download Update option in Solution Explorer.

Navigate to where you saved the project files that you created in Visual Studio. Default location is C:\Users\PSDan\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects.
Open the project folder that you are experiencing problems with and navigate to C:\Users\PSDan\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\test\test\test.Windows folder. Inside this folder is a file called test.Windows.csproj.
Right click on that file and open with... using Visual Studio, by doing this it should detect the missing package and in my case automatically prompted to install the missing package.

I've been seeing similar errors for .Window or .WindowPhone and what I've observed is that it is due to missing SDK. Same might be the case with you.
Do you see App1.Droid appearing in the solution? (I guess NO)
Go to file explorer and locate App1.Droid.csproj (..\App1\App1.Droid\App1.Droid.csproj) and open this in a new instance. There it will pop up "Install Missing Feature" dialog and you can follow the steps to install missing components.

If your issue is the same as here:
Project required a Visual Studio update
then you may try and see if this solution works:
[Cause is] a mismatch of the target framework version and profile in the .csproj file. Despite the target framework being correct in the project Properties, they were not being correctly saved for whatever reason. Thus, when trying to install a utility library from nuGet, it left my project in the state you described.
The solution was to go by this site:
Framework Profiles in .NET
and find the correct combination, then manually edit the .csproj file to adjust <TargetFrameworkProfile> and <TargetFrameworkVersion>.

Installing Visual Studio Update 3 with selected features "Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.0/8.1" and "Cross Platform Mobile Development" solved the problem for me.

Uninstall Xamarin completely, and reinstall it. That happened to me as well. I would uninstall Visual studio too. Install that first, then install Xamarin.
Edit: I know this sucks to do, but it was what the Xamarin team had me do to resolve it. As far as I know this is the official fix as of last week.

Error when building universal app for the store: "Manifest references file 'MyAppName.dll' which is not part of the payload."

I am having this error in Visual Studio 2015 when try to create app package for the store for a windows universal applicaiton:
Manifest references file 'MyAppName.dll' which is not part of the payload.
The error is in the ...\..MyAppSourcePath..\Package.appxmanifest file.
This is somehow related Manifest references file 'Bing.Maps.dll' which is not part of the payload but in my case the error shows up only when build package for the store and is related to the MyAppName.dll (where MyAppName is the name of the name of my application).
Another related question in MSDN: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f137091e-f550-4eab-b7e2-418149b97d40/error-appx0703-manifest-references-file-myappnamedll-which-is-not-part-of-the-payload?forum=windowsstore

It turns out this is known issue in Windows 10 SDK (Update 1.1). Reference: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/73f2d56d-9e8e-4b57-bcfa-0a972dfd75d7/update-11-generating-store-associated-package-fails-for-a-uwp-application-with-a-winrt-component?forum=Win10SDKToolsIssues
To workaround this issue, add the below ItemGroup in your project file and regenerate the package.
<ItemGroup>
<AppxSystemBinary Include="<Assembly Mentioned in the error>" />
</ItemGroup>
For example, if the assembly name is MyAppName.dll, include:
<ItemGroup>
<AppxSystemBinary Include="MyAppName.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
This ItemGroup can be expanded if the error still occurs for other assemblies, for example:
<ItemGroup>
<AppxSystemBinary Include="MyAppName.dll" />
<AppxSystemBinary Include="OtherAssembly.dll" />
</ItemGroup>

A bug fix for the Visual Studio Tools for Universal Windows Apps (v1.1.1) is released on 5 October 2015. This update requires that you already have the UWP tools v1.1 installed. You can determine whether you have UWP tools 1.1 installed by opening About Microsoft Visual Studio from the Help menu in Visual Studio. If you have “Visual Studio Tools for Universal Windows Apps 14.0.23309.00” installed, then you have the UWP tools 1.1.
To install this update
You must have an internet connection throughout the setup process.
For machines without Visual Studio
Install Visual Studio from https://dev.windows.com/downloads.
For machines with UWP Tools 1.1 installed
Run this installer (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=627168) to update the UWP tools to v1.1.1.
For machines without UWP Tools 1.1 installed
For Visual Studio 2015 Community, Professional, and Enterprise, you can install by
Modifying your setup to install the updated tools.
Clicking on the entry for the UWP tools in the Notifications pane.
Using the Extensions and Updates dialog to update Visual Studio.
Running the installer at https://dev.windows.com/downloads, which will add the updated tools to an existing Visual Studio installation.
For Visual Studio 2015 Express for Windows
Run this installer (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=624822) to update the UWP tools to v1.1.
To confirm that you have installed the UWP tools 1.1.1 update,
Go to Programs and Features in the Windows Control Panel, and click View installed updates.
Look for “Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 (KB3073097)”, version 14.0.23315
Source: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/73f2d56d-9e8e-4b57-bcfa-0a972dfd75d7/update-11-generating-store-associated-package-fails-for-a-uwp-application-with-a-winrt-component?forum=Win10SDKToolsIssues

I had a hell of a time trying to work this out and it's a slightly different issue to what the OP posted but hopefully this will help someone else out because I couldn't find the answer on StackOverflow and finally found it here: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/Sharepoint/en-US/65bc5999-662c-4eda-9967-e1b3031db8c4/error-appx0703-error-manifest-references-file-assetssplashscreenpng-which-is-not-part-of-the?forum=wpdevelop after many hours of mucking around and trying different things.
My error was the same except the file was for the various store and tile image files thus: "Manifest references file 'Assets\Store\StoreLogo.png' which is not part of the payload."
All the files did exist but turned out I was running Visual Studio on a VM using Parallels and the project opened through shared folders and using a UNC path. Ran the project from a mapped drive and it builds all good.
I do realise now that referencing UNC paths using a VM in Parallels Desktop has caused a few issues for me in the past. So just need to keep in mind that things should be run via a mapped drive instead to avoid this.

How to log a project that is being deployed from Visual Studio?

I have a C# project written using Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop. When I run the project in debug mode via Visual Studio (on Windows 8 Pro) it executes just fine, and so does copying the files out of the bin directory.
I need to deploy to a Windows 7 Embedded System with the correct version of .NET Framework. I tried:
copying the files over with the .dll and everythig from the bin folder and when starting I get no error, but doesn't start at all. I get no information at all.
tried the one click installer (choosing the option to install from dvd) and it seemed to install fine, but when I start it, I get same issue. Not starting, and no messages.
I also tried the Advanced Installer (free version) and when importing the visual studio project files it fails with the message "Failed to start Visual Studio. Error: Invalid Class String"
[UPDATE] Advanced Installer cannot import VS Express solutions because the API from VS that provides assistance on import is not available for VS Express edition. Only solutions created with paid editions of VS can be imported in Advanced Installer.
So how can I log or see what is happening to debug this?