Scott on Writing

Musings on technical writing...

Fixing "The Following Add-Ins Failed to Load" Error in Visual Studio .NET

I am giving a talk on Web Services this week and one technology I discuss in virtually every Web Services talk is the Web Services Enhancement (WSE) Toolkit.  One of the nice things about the WSE Toolkit is that it integrates with Visual Studio .NET - right-click on the Web Service or client project and there's a WSE 2.0 Settings option in the context menu that brings up a GUI to edit the WSE-related settings.  However, in running through the talk/demo code today, I noticed that my copy of VS.NET on my laptop wasn't displaying the option in the GUI.

My first attempt at fixing this was to simply uninstall and reinstall the WSE Toolkit.  Upon restarting VS.NET after this process, I got a dialog box with the warning, “The Following Add-Ins Failed to Load - WSE 2.0.”  Urg.  I did a bit of searching and discovered that one way to fix this was to “repair” the VS.NET installation.  So, off I went to the Add/Remove New Programs screen and went to the VS.NET installation screen and clicked on the Repair/Reinstall option.  This prompted me for the VS.NET CDs and, about 20 minutes later, wrapped up doing whatever in the world it was doing.

Fortunately, this fixed the problem for me.  I have no idea what the problem was, exactly, but opting to repair VS.NET is what ended up working for me.  Hope this helps someone else in a similar situation.  For those more familiar with VS.NET Add-In specifics, any guesses/ideas as to what the problem was and, perhaps, a more direct, quicker workaround?

posted on Monday, September 19, 2005 9:35 PM

Feedback

# re: Fixing "The Following Add-Ins Failed to Load" Error in Visual Studio .NET 9/19/2005 10:59 PM Pradeep T.P

I really feel strange when I hear someone saying that just to fix an add-in error, the entire VS.net needs to be reinstalled. Do you still think whether it was a wise decision to do the same. My question is, why cant you seek the help of the software vendor or in worst case the Microsoft!!!.

# Worth a try 9/19/2005 11:37 PM Eden

In the past when I have had issues with add-ins running devenv /setup seemed to sort them out. Admittedly this is a bit of a shot in the dark but it's certainly worth trying.

# re: Fixing "The Following Add-Ins Failed to Load" Error in Visual Studio .NET 9/20/2005 4:32 PM Travis

I second the "devenv /setup" fix - that's actually the prescribed method of forcing add-ins to recreate their UI. The specifics of what's going on in add-in UI creation are a little beyond the comments on a blog, but if you're interested, check out "Inside Visual Studio .NET" from Microoft Press.

A word of warning - "devenv /setup" will also reset all of your window positions and toolbars and such back to defaults, so if you have a highly customized environment, you're going to lose some of that.

# re: Fixing "The Following Add-Ins Failed to Load" Error in Visual Studio .NET 11/4/2005 12:14 PM Dave

I third the devenv /setup I have used this many times to fix pesky VS.Net!

Title:  
Name:  
Url:
Protected by Clearscreen.SharpHIPEnter the code you see:
Comments   

Add To Your Reader

My Links

Archives

Post Categories

 

I am a Microsoft MVP for ASP.NET.
I am an ASPInsider.
<May 2008>
SMTWTFS
27282930123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
1234567

Comment Stats

DayTotal% of Total
Sunday 1866.8%
Monday 37913.9%
Tuesday 45316.7%
Wednesday 50418.5%
Thursday 53519.7%
Friday 49418.2%
Saturday 1666.1%
Total 2717100.0%

Hour1Total% of Total
12:00 AM 652.4%
1:00 AM 682.5%
2:00 AM 622.3%
3:00 AM 742.7%
4:00 AM 572.1%
5:00 AM 1033.8%
6:00 AM 1084.0%
7:00 AM 1585.8%
8:00 AM 1716.3%
9:00 AM 1475.4%
10:00 AM 1716.3%
11:00 AM 1816.7%
12:00 PM 1886.9%
1:00 PM 1696.2%
2:00 PM 1605.9%
3:00 PM 1324.9%
4:00 PM 1073.9%
5:00 PM 923.4%
6:00 PM 913.3%
7:00 PM 963.5%
8:00 PM 833.1%
9:00 PM 782.9%
10:00 PM 792.9%
11:00 PM 772.8%
Total 2717100.0%

Comments by Blog Entry Date/Time

Day Entry MadeAvg.Total
Sunday 5.54144
Monday 5.22339
Tuesday 4.28419
Wednesday 7.67637
Thursday 6.90607
Friday 5.48411
Saturday 5.33160
Total 5.842717

Hour1 Entry MadeAvg.Total
12:00 AM 5.0035
1:00 AM 1.002
5:00 AM 0.000
7:00 AM 7.0035
8:00 AM 5.35107
9:00 AM 6.32278
10:00 AM 6.47246
11:00 AM 4.41181
12:00 PM 6.88330
1:00 PM 3.00111
2:00 PM 5.41222
3:00 PM 8.64285
4:00 PM 4.0589
5:00 PM 5.92154
6:00 PM 4.52113
7:00 PM 9.67174
8:00 PM 9.80147
9:00 PM 5.05111
10:00 PM 5.4265
11:00 PM 4.5732
Total 5.842717

Learn More About Comment Stats
1 - All times GMT -8...


Blog Stats

Favorite Web Sites

My Books

My MSDN Articles