I have searched manymany posts for resolution to this problem and nothing has helped yet. I first installed VS2008 Express C# on my machine and I can get XAML Design View no problem. When I right click on the xaml file in the Solution Explorer it says that WPF Designer is the default. Then I installed VS2008 Pro and in C# I can't get the xaml design view. When I right click on the file in Solution Explorer, WPF Designer is not there. I still have Express installed, but I tried uninstalling it and it didn't fix the problem.

If Express can find the WPF Designer, why can't Pro? Is there some way to find out where Express is pointing so that I can 'Add' the program by right clicking on the xaml file in Pro and selecting 'Add'?

I already tried devenv /setup, /resetskippkgs, etc. and it fixed some other problem but not this one.

Thanks,
BM

Hi bjmc

1. Did you by any chance upgrade VS2008 C# Express to Service Pack 1 before installing Visual Studio 2008 Pro?

2. If so, because of a problem with the way the service pack installers work when multiple SKUs of Visual Studio are present,you will need to download andrun the standalone Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 installer to update Visual Studio 2008 Pro to Service Pack 1 before you will be able to use the designer in Visual Studio 2008 Pro. If you don't, the first time you run the WPF designer in Visual Studio 2008 Pro you'll see a dialog box with anerror loading the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml package. This is caused by Visual Studio attempting to load an incompatible version of the designer into the un-servicepacked Visual Studio 2008 Pro shell.

3. Depending on whether you chose to skip loading the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml package, note that once you've installed SP1 again, you may alsoneed to run Visual Studio 2008 Pro from a Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt (elevated if you're on Windows 7 or Windows Vista) by executing devenv /resetskippkgs before the designer will be visible. This command reverses the instruction to skip loading a package at startup.

I hope this helps

Mark Wilson-Thomas

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Hi Mark,

I had the same problems like mentioned above and I have followed you suggestion.

When I try to run the installer I get:

Installation Requirements:

A compatible version of Visual Studio 2008 was not detected on the system. This update is designed for only the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (ENU) product family, and is not compatible with any Express editions.

Actually I only have a test version of Visual Studio 2008 Professional for 90 days, but day one is really a bad start :-(

Thanks and best regards
Dieter

Hi Dieter

For the Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions, you need to download a whole new copy of the relevant Express edition from here, uninstall the old one and install the new one. Then, if you happen to also have a Pro edition installed, you need to patch that edition to SP1 separatley using the standalone installer.

See the FAQ for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Express Editions for details of why this is so.

Hope this helps

Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'

Hi Mark

thanks for the information. I have uninstalled the Express Edition and I have installed the SP1. Now I get highlighted XAML code but the preview window causes an immediate crash. In the Event View I found:

.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3082 - Schwerwiegender Fehler im Ausführungsmodul (7A035FC0) (80131506).

 

.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3082 - Schwerwiegender Fehler im Ausführungsmodul (7A2E1132) (0).

I am sorry for the German error message, but I guess you get the picture...

Best regards
Dieter

Good News:

After I installed the Hotfix KB963676 the WPF Designer is available again.

Good to hear - thanks for letting me know.

Would a reasonable translation for the error you were seeing before be something about "loading the assembly giving a different Grant Set"? If so that is exactly the scenario that KB963676 is intended to fix.

Thanks
Mark

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Mark Wilson-Thomas - Program Team - WPF & SL Designer for Visual Studio - posts are provided 'as-is'