Develop Reference

How do I apply the assembly:ThemeInfo attribute with an auto-generated AssemblyInfo?

After the migration to the new VS 2017 project system, the AssemblyInfo.cs file is now auto-generated by default. How can I add the assembly:ThemeInfo[] attribute to my project that is required by WPF to find the default Themes\generic.xamlfile without disabling the auto-generation?

It doesn't actually matter where the attribute is placed, it is not required to be in a file named AssemblyInfo.cs. Assembly-level attributes can be placed anywhere, it doesn't even need to be a class. I ultimately put them in a file named AssemblyAttributes.cs in the project in case there will be other attributes that need to be added.

Add compile parameter to csc command using Visual Studio IDE

The solution consists of two projects: main.csproj and helper.csproj.
What Id'like to do is using dll which helper project will be complied into, as an embedded resource for main.dll.
For that purposes it's seems resonable to add custom compile attribute for project main: /resource: <path to dll>.
The problem is I can't find how to add this compile parameter through the Project Property.
PS Maybe someone can suggest other solution to avoid making changes in compile process.

You should be able to add the helper assembly as a resource in the main.csproj. That will make MsBuild generate the correct parameters for csc.
(MsBuild is the build engine used by .NET in general up to and including 4.x and is also used by VisualStudio.)
What you can do to set this up is:
Right click the Main project in the Visual Studio solution explorer and select Add existing item. Add the assembly to be embedded as a linked item from the bin folder of the helper project. (click the little arrow on the Add button in the selection dialog to access the option to add as a link).
In the properties for the item in the Main project, set Action to Embedded resource.
Tricky bit would be to include the correct build so that you include the debug build or the release build depending on what configuration you are building.
If you need that, you can either:
edit main.csproj file to include the ${Configuration} variable in the path for the helper dll.
Add a pre-build step to the main.csproj file to copy in the assembly to a fixed place and include the file from there (the include as link bit is no longer needed then)
To make sure you always build the helper assembly when you build the main assembly I would recommend you add a project reference to the main project.

How can you force StyleCop to ignore a file?

I've included a 3rd party .cs file in my code. It doesn't comply with StyleCop's rules but I desperately need to be able to exclude it from StyleCop's checks but none of the methods I've found so far will work.
Three methods are documented here: http://sethflowers.com/blog/force-stylecop-to-ignore-a-file/ .. but none of these methods seems to work in StyleCop 4.7
The most useful of which looks to be this method in .csproj:
<Compile Include="AViolatingFile.cs">
    <ExcludeFromStyleCop>true</ExcludeFromStyleCop>
</Compile>
But despite having added the files, StyleCop still causes a compilation error when parsing this file.

// <auto-generated/>
Put this at the top of the class
Style cop ignores auto generated code

I used stylecop a while back as well and I believe you have to use the following line in your csproj file:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\StyleCop\v4.6\StyleCop.targets" Condition="Exists('$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\StyleCop\v4.6\StyleCop.targets')" />
You will also need to change the version number in the xml declaration to whatever you have installed.
Hope this helps.

Atm, I'm running StyleCop 4.7.49 from Xamarin Studio, and I have some hideous autogenerated file outside of my control (looking at you ¬¬ netfx-System.StringFormatWith)...
The solution for me was to disable all rules for only that file... how to do that?
You have to modify the file Settings.StyleCop and insert inside the StyleCopSettings tag the following
<SourceFileList>
<SourceFile>HideousClass.cs</SourceFile>
<Settings>
<GlobalSettings>
<BooleanProperty Name="RulesEnabledByDefault">False</BooleanProperty>
</GlobalSettings>
</Settings>
</SourceFileList>
Change HideousClass.cs with the file you want. you can also have multiple SourceFile tags if you want to set the rules for various files at once.
Taken from Using File Lists at StyleCop at CodePlex.com (see "Disable all rules for a subset of files" under "Examples").
Similar approach to the one seen above can be used if you want to enable or disable some rules for only some files.

Anyone that is still pulling your hair out on this one, I did the following:
.editorconfig
Example:
[SpecFlow.Plus.Runner.AssemblyHooks.cs]
dotnet_diagnostic.SA1633.severity = none
dotnet_diagnostic.CS1591.severity = none

// <auto-generated/>
put this on top of namespace and that should be good.

How to force deployment project to update files during installation of newer version?

I have a Deployment Project for my VS2008 C# application. When installing a new version of my application I want to make sure that files are updated with the files contained in the installer.
I want my installer to automatically remove any old version of the installed application. To do that I follow this procedure (also described here):
Set RemovePreviousVersions to True
Set DetectNewerInstalledVersion to
True
Increment the Version of the
installer
Choose Yes to change the ProductCode
For the assemblies I make sure the AssemblyVersion is set to a higher version:
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
Everything is working as intended except for my configuration files (xml files). Since I cannot find a way to "version" these files I cannot make sure that the files are updated if they have been modified on the target machine.
Is there any way to do this and how?
UPDATE: I have tried the approach/solution/workaround found here
Include the file directly in a
project with the following
properties: "Build Action -> Content
file" and "Copy to Output Directory
-> Copy always"
Then add it to the deployment
project via Project
Output->Database->Content Files
Unfortunately it did not make any difference. The behavior is exactly the same.

Add the following property to the Property table of the MSI:
Property REINSTALLMODE with Value amus
Note: This will cause all the files in the MSI (versioned and nonversioned) to overwrite the files that are on the system.

If you're willing to use Orca (there may be another way to do this method, but it's the only one I know of) you may be able to set up RemoveFile directives.
See here for a typically light-weight MSDN document -- could be a starting point.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa371201.aspx
Alternatively you could always create a very simple bootstrapper executable that simply calls "msiexec /i REINSTALLMODE=oums" (or whichever command-line switches are needed). Call it setup.exe if you like...
Better option long-term may be to switch to InstallShield or similar -- VS2010 includes a light version of IS and I believe they're moving away from vdproj projects.

Have you tried the approach/solution/workaround found here?
Include the file directly in a
project with the following
properties: "Build Action -> Content
file" and "Copy to Output Directory
-> Copy always"
Then add it to the deployment
project via Project
Output->Database->Content Files

I may be incorrect here, and therefore I am exposing myself to down votes, but here goes anyway!
I believe it is on purpose that config files do not automatically get overwritten; the principle there being that you would not normally want your application's configuration overwritten when you install the new version of the program... at least not without numerous warnings and/or chances to merge configuration first.
Having your application configuration get overwritten by an updated version of a program could make for a very upset end user (in this case, web site admin).
Further, I know that sometimes, the developer may be the person doing the deployment. In such a case, this behavior might not seem so logical when deploying a single site to a single server; but when roles are split and/or you have multiple servers with different configurations, this can be a life saver.

You need to include the new version of your files in your custom installer and manually install these file during Custom Install routine is called
This must be applied to any file that does not have version that can be tracked by the installer.

What does MissingManifestResourceException mean and how to fix it?

The situation:
I have a class library, called RT.Servers, containing a few resources (of type byte[], but I don't think that's important)
The same class library contains a method which returns one of those resources
I have a simple program (with a reference to that library) that only calls that single method
I get a MissingManifestResourceException with the following message:
Could not find any resources
appropriate for the specified culture
or the neutral culture. Make sure
"Servers.Resources.resources" was
correctly embedded or linked into
assembly "RT.Servers" at compile time,
or that all the satellite assemblies
required are loadable and fully
signed.
I have never played around with cultures, or with assembly signing, so I don't know what's going on here. Also, this works in another project which uses the same library. Any ideas?

All I needed to do to fix this problem was to right-click the Resources.resx file in the Solution Explorer and click Run Custom Tool. This re-generates the auto-generated Resources.Designer.cs file.
If the .resx file was added to the project manually, the Custom Tool property of the file must be set to "ResXFileCodeGenerator".
The problem is due to a mismatch of namespaces, which occurs if you change the "default namespace" of the assembly in the project settings. (I changed it from (previously) "Servers" to (now) "RT.Servers".)
In the auto-generated code in Resources.Designer.cs, there is the following code:
internal static global::System.Resources.ResourceManager ResourceManager {
get {
if (object.ReferenceEquals(resourceMan, null)) {
global::System.Resources.ResourceManager temp = new global::System.Resources.ResourceManager("Servers.Resources", typeof(Resources).Assembly);
resourceMan = temp;
}
return resourceMan;
}
}
The literal string "Servers.Resources" had to be changed to "RT.Servers.Resources". I did this manually, but running the custom tool would have equally well done it.

I just came across this problem today, and I found this Microsoft Help and Support page that actually did work around the problem.
I had a couple delegates at the top of my file, in the global namespace, and all of a sudden I was getting a MissingManifestResourceException when running the program, on this line:
this.Icon = ((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("$this.Icon")));
Then I moved the delegates into the namespace, got the same error. Finally I put the delegates in the only class in that file, and the error went away, but I didn't want the delegates in that class or namespace.
Then I came across that link above, which said
To resolve this problem, move all of the other class definitions so that they appear after the form's class definition.
I put the delegates (which I would not consider "class definitions") at the bottom of that file, outside of the local namespace, and the program didn't get the MissingManifestResourceException anymore. What an irritating error. But, that seems like a more robust solution than modifying the auto-generated code :)

I've run into a similar issue and, although I know it isn't the cause the OP had, I'll post it here so that if someone else runs across this problem in the future, an answer will be available.
If you add a class before the designer class you will get a MissingManifestResourceException exception at runtime (no compile time error or warning) because
Visual Studio requires that designers use the first class in the file.
For (slightly) more information see this post.

I had the same problem, but using the Run Custom Tool command as suggested by Timwi did not help in my case.
However it lead me into the right direction, because I ended up in the Properties of the .resx file. Here I noticed a difference to another .resx file that caused no problems.
In my case I had to change the property "Build Action" from "Resource" to "Embedded Resource".
My best guess for the reason is, that I had the .resx in a library that was used from another application. My application did not have its own .resx file, so it had to use the one from the library - which is only available when it's embedded in the library and not "stand alone".

When I run in a similar issue, in Vs 2012, it turned out that the "Custom Tool Namespace" property of the resx file was wrong (in my case, actually, it was unset, so the generated code yeld this exception at runtime).
My final set of properties for the resx file was something like this:
Build action: Embedded Resource
Copy to Output Directory: Do not copy
Custom Tool: ResXFileCodeGenerator
Custom Tool Namespace: My.Project.S.Proper.Namespace

I ran into a different cause of this problem, which was unrelated to resx files. I had a class library where AssemblyInfo.cs contained the following:
[assembly: ThemeInfo(
ResourceDictionaryLocation.SourceAssembly,
ResourceDictionaryLocation.SourceAssembly)]
The assembly did not contain any WPF code, theme or Resource dictionaries. I got rid of the exception by removing the ThemeInfo attribute.
I did not get an actual exception, only
A first chance exception of type 'System.Resources.MissingManifestResourceException'.
Viewing exception details, the system was requesting MyAssembly.g.resources
Hope this might be of help to someone else.

Also see: MissingManifestResourceException when running tests after building with MSBuild (.mresource has path in manifest)
I repeat the answer here just for completeness:
It appears adding LogicalName to the project file fixes it:
<LogicalName>$(RootNamespace).Properties.Resources.resources</LogicalName>
i.e. so the embedded resource entry in the project file looks like this:
<ItemGroup>
<EmbeddedResource Include="Properties\Resources.resx">
<Generator>ResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
<LastGenOutput>Resources.Designer.cs</LastGenOutput>
<LogicalName>$(RootNamespace).Properties.Resources.resources</LogicalName>
</EmbeddedResource>
</ItemGroup>
This is detailed in: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msbuild/archive/2007/10/19/manifest-resource-names-changed-for-resources-files.aspx
Note that we are using a .resx file, but the bug still appears to occur.
Update: The problem with resources (incl. XAML) appears to be related to output paths and the use of forward or backward slashes as detailed in:
Why does modifying project output directories cause: IOException was unhandled "Cannot locate resource 'app.xaml'."

Not sure it will help people but this one worked for me :
So the issue I had was that I was getting the following message:
Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture. Make sure "My.Resources.Resources.resources" was correctly embedded or linked into assembly "X" at compile time, or that all the satellite assemblies required are loadable and fully signed"
I was trying to get the resources that were embedded in my project from another class library.
What I did to fix the problem was to set the Access Modifier in the tab Project->Properties->Resources from "Internal" (accessible only within the same class library) to "Public" (accessible from another class library)
Then run and voilà, no more error for me...

The solution given by BlaM worked for me too.
I am a VS 2013 User. After going through many fixes but no luck, I tried this:
Right-click the resource file, one-by-one, in case of multiple-files.
Make sure, the property "Build Action" is set to "Embedded Resource".
That's it! :)

I had the same issue, but in my case i places a class in a usercontrol which is related to the usercontrol like this
Public Class MyUserControlObject
end Class
Public Class MyUserCOntrol
end Class
The solution was to move the MyUserControlObject to the end of the Usercontrol class, like this
Public Class MyUserCOntrol
end Class
Public Class MyUserControlObject
end Class
I hope this helps

I was getting the MissingManifestResourceException error after I ported my project from VS2005 to VS2010. I didn't have any other classes defined in the file that contains my Form class. And I also had my resx Resource File Name set correctly. Didn't work.
So I deleted the resx files and regenerated them. All good now.

Recently ran into the same problem, struggled for a bit, found this topic but no answers were correct for me.
My issue was that when I removed main window from my WPF project (it does not have a main window), I forgot to remove StartupUri from App.xaml. I guess this exception can happen if you have a mistake in StartupUri, so in case if anybody is struggling with this - check your StartupUri in App.xaml.

Recently stumbled upon this issue, in my case I did a few things:
Make sure the namespaces are consistent in the Designer.cs file of the resx file
Make sure the default namespace of the Assembly(right click the project and choose Properties) is set the same to the namespace the resources file is in.
Once I did step 2, the exception went away.

I had this problem when I added another class in the file just before the class which derived from Form. Adding it after fixed the problem.

Also the same error may occur when you put a new class into the source code of a designer created form's class.
This new class may be removed, and placed in a different cs file.
(At least in my case this was the problem...)

Because I am pre-compiling my web application (using VS2012 publish feature). I was getting the error above. I tried all the suggestions, but weirdly changing 'Build Action' to 'Content' did the trick!

In my case, I have a web api with resources and I create a nuget package from that. When I use this nuget in other projects, I realise that when I request a api with resources, I am getting MissingManifestResourceException after a bit reasearch, I learn nuget packager is not packing resources automatically. If you want to use resources files, you have to do that manually. So you need to add below lines to your .nuspec file:
(Visit https://github.com/NuGet/Home/issues/1482)
<package>
<metadata>
</metadata>
<files>
<file src="bin\Debug\en\MyAssembly.resource.dll" target="lib\net40\en\MyAssembly.resource.dll" />
<file src="bin\Debug\es\MyAssembly.resource.dll" target="lib\net40\es\MyAssembly.resource.dll" />
</files>
</package>
But, before adding files, you need to be sure which version of .net you are using.

I had the with a newly created F# project.
The solution was to uncheck "Use standard resource names" in the project properties -> Application -> Resources / Specify how application resources will be managed.
If you do not see the checkbox then update your Visual Studio! I have 15.6.7 installed. In 15.3.2 this checkbox is not there.

Just to mention. If you use a constant or literal, make sure it refers to a resource of the form ProjectName.Resources, and does not cpntain Resources.resx.
It could save you an hour or two .

I've encountered this issue with managed C++ project based on WinForms after renaming global namespace (not manually, but with Rename tool of VS2017).
The solution is simple, but isn't mentioned elsewhere.
You have to change RootNamespace entry in vcxproj-file to match the C++ namespace.

In my case it was a typo in the Xaml of a window opened from Winforms Form:
Incorrect: <Image Source="/Resources/WorkGreen.gif"/>
Correct: <Image Source="../Resources/WorkGreen.gif"/>
It may help someone

In my case I have changed my project namespace and hence my solution was throwing "missingmanifestresourceexception" exception. Instead of right clicking the .resx file in the solution explorer and clicking on "Run Custom Tool" option, I have replaced the
rootnamespace to new namespace in .csproj file(RootNamespace) and rebuilded the solution again. All Resources.Designer.cs files namespaces got automatically changed with new namespace.
I hope my answer will help someone.

If you're getting this while generating a C# project using CMake, the solution I found may help you.
Your CMakeLists.txt file needs
set_property(TARGET yourTargetName PROPERTY VS_GLOBAL_RootNamespace yourRootNamespace)
Substitute your own values for yourTargetName and yourRootNamespace, obviously.
Then the resources will get embedded in your assembly!

One more reason to get this error is- '.resx' file excluded from project.
In my case, '.resx' file was excluded from project.
Select 'show all files' option in solution explorer.
Right click on '.resx' file(s) and click include in project.
Rebuild the project/solution.

I read all the answers and nothing worked for me. Most likely my situation is different, but same error. My issue was that I had two projects. Second project had a lot of forms added to it from the first one as "Add as link".
For WinForms, there are 3 required files: the code, the designer, and the resource files. If you add all 3 files at the same time as "Add as link", Visual Studio does not link them together as same form. It will compile, and run, but it will blow up with the same MissingManifestResourceException error.
Fix: You have to do them individually, in order: code file --> designer file --> resource file. Then they are grouped and no more error, at least for me.

From the Microsoft support page:
This problem occurs if you use a localized resource that exists in a satellite assembly that you created by using a .resources file that has an inappropriate file name. This problem typically occurs if you manually create a satellite assembly.
To work around this problem, specify the file name of the .resources file when you run Resgen.exe. While you specify the file name of the .resources file, make sure that the file name starts with the namespace name of your application. For example, run the following command at the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET command prompt to create a .resources file that has the namespace name of your application at the beginning of the file name:
Resgen strings.CultureIdentifier.resx
MyApp.strings.CultureIdentifier.resources