I can't use WPF designer.
I tried some commands to fix it ('devenv /resetskippkgs' & 'devenv /resetsettings') but nothing change.

This is the complete error message
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Microsoft Visual Studio
---------------------------
Package Load Failure

Package 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml' has failed to load properly ( GUID = {E58C2A8B-BCC4-4559-AD59-D62EB6D58A22} ). Please contact package vendor for assistance. Application restart is recommended, due to possible environment corruption. Would you like to disable loading this package in the future? You may use 'devenv /resetskippkgs' to re-enable package loading.
---------------------------
Yes No
---------------------------

Some days ago WPF Designer worked correctly and I didn't install anything new on my pc.
Can someone help me ?
Many thanks
claudio

Its bizarre that it would suddenly stop working like that. Have you tried running setup->repair?

Its bizarre that it would suddenly stop working like that. Have you tried running setup->repair?

Ok , fixed.

Many thanks

Cool. I'm glad that sorted it out

can u please tell me how did u repair it?

thanx
alen

I just installed Visual Studio 2008 for the first time and immediately got the same error. I tried repairing the installation but it did not help. How did you manage to resolve this issue?

According to some of the forums I've been browsing, this error only really occurrs due to two reasons:
1) Accidentally deleting / corrupting the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml.dll file
2) You are in the possesion of an illegal copy of Visual Studio

in both cases replacing the dll seems to work

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Languages: Visual Basic, C, C++, Python,HTML

I have tried to repair my installation of C# which did not solve this problem. Not sure how I could have deleted by accident and my copy is legal express version. So what are my options now? Should I uninstall and start over(VB,VC#,VC++)

Thanks for your help!

Hi,

I also facing the same issue in my system.I have removed trial version of Visual Studio 2008 and installed new Visual Studio 2008 package [Licensedversion] in my machine. Tt was working fine trial version. After installing the licensed version I am facing this issue.

P.S: I am developing WPF & Silverlight applications.

Please help me to fix this issue.

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Prabu

Prabu.P

Since you are developing Silverlight applications, I assume you are using the Silverlight 2 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1? If so, I suggest you may be able to repair your installation by re-running the installer for the Silverlight Tools, which should refresh the necessary assemblies.

If this does not work, please reply with the File Version of the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml assembly (you can find this by going to your GAC folder e.g. c:\windows\assembly, finding the entry and right clicking - select Properties, then the version tab, and the file version will be at the top. It should be something like 9.0.30729.1

Mark

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

Where can you get a new copy of the dll?

I had installed Visual Studio Express VB in order to qualify for the competitive upgrade. I purchased an upgrade copy of Visual Studio 2008 standard. It found the Express installation and proceeded with the install.

I have repaired the installation but am still getting the error whenever I open a file.

I don't know what to do. I think the file must be corrupted, but the repair did not fix it. I don't know how to get a clean copy.

@lynnephelps:

if you have installed Visual Studio Express VB, then patched it to Service Pack 1, then installed Visual Studio 2008 standard RTM, you are in a broken state (you'll see package load failures for Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml when trying to open a WPF project XAML file).

To fix the problem, you can run the standalone Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 installer. This should leave both the Express SKU and the Standard SKU with a working WPF designer, service packed to SP1.

Please let me know how you get on,

Thanks
Mark

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

@lynnephelps:

if you have installed Visual Studio Express VB, then patched it to Service Pack 1, then installed Visual Studio 2008 standard RTM, you are in a broken state (you'll see package load failures for Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml when trying to open a WPF project XAML file).

To fix the problem, you can run the standalone Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 installer. This should leave both the Express SKU and the Standard SKU with a working WPF designer, service packed to SP1.

Please let me know how you get on,

Thanks
Mark

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

Hey, I was also facing this problem of having the error message earlier. After installing the Service Park 1 my problem is solved! Probably like what you said, it had to do with the express edition, I installed the Visual Studio Express C# earlier, uninstalled it and then installedthe Visual Studio 2008.

Thanks!

I am glad to hear that this helped you get past the problem state @yeeen!

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

I have exactly the same problem. Directly after the first install I get this error:

---------------------------
Microsoft Visual Studio
---------------------------
Package Load Failure

Package 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml' has failed to load properly ( GUID = {E58C2A8B-BCC4-4559-AD59-D62EB6D58A22} ). Please contact package vendor for assistance. Application restart is recommended, due to possible environment corruption. Would you like to disable loading this package in the future? You may use 'devenv /resetskippkgs' to re-enable package loading.


Repairing Visual Studio 2008 Team Developer Edition, SP1 or .NET 3.5 SP1 doesn't fo the trick. The silverlight SDK is also installed. What else could I try?

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http://bitbonk.spaces.live.com

I too have just discovered this problem having not done any WPF projects for some months.

Tried a repair of VC# - no change.

I have only ever installed the Express versions of Visual Studio. Have checked the File Version of the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml assembly , as sugested by Mark, and it is 9.0.30729.1.

Should I delete this assembly and then do a repair of VC#?

Peter

@bitbonk:

Rather than using the repair option on SP1, please trydownloading and running the standalone Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 installerand then starting Visual Studio from a Visual Studio 2008 command prompt with the /resetskippkgs switch (open a Visual Studio 2008 command prompt and type devenv /resetskippkgs).

@peterwt

From the version number of the assembly , it looks like you have the SP1 version of the VC# package installed. Given you are still seeing a package load failure, your most likely productive next step since you are still seeing this issue is to completely uninstall VC# Express, download a fresh copy from the internet, and completely re-install it.

Mark

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

Thanks Mark - that's what I will do.

Peter

Finlly I got my VS IDE's XAML intelligence after installing "Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1" downloaded from the given link.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/3/7/a371b6d1-fc5e-44f7-914c-cb452b4043a9/VS2008SP1ENUX1512962.iso

Alternate solution:-
If you change your machine's user profile, then there might be a change to get the XAML intelligence.

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Prabu

Uninstall/install cured the problem.

I think the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml package must have got corrupted.

Peter

Since in my case un/installing SP1 (neither as standalone nor as web installer) or un/installing VS 2008 (Team Developer Edition) did not I'd like to share the solution that worked for me:

I uninstalled all Microsoft Products that are related to XAML and/or Visual Studio 2008:

- Silverlight 3
- Silverlight 3 SDK
- Expression Studio 3 (all components)
- Visual Studio 2008 Team Developer Edition
- Team Foundation Client 2008

Once all this is uninstallled the GAC should not contain Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml anymore. If you have some Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions installed, uninstall them too. If then Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml is still in the GAC I think you are safe to uninstall it from the GAC.

Then I reinstalled everything including VS 2008 SP1.

And it worked. Intellisense is back. I wish I knew what caused this. How can Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml get corrupted once it is in the GAC?

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http://bitbonk.spaces.live.com

@bitbonk, thanks for posting your solution and I'm glad that it worked.

Several installers install the Microsoft.VisualStudio.xaml assembly, and it is possible that you might have run into an install order issue.

If you install the Silverlight 3Tools for Visual Studio 2008, in order to provide the Silverlight functionality we have to revise the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Xaml assembly. This means that if you're using Silverlight Tools you need to ensure they are installed last, so the order would be:

1. Install RTM Visual Studio 2008 bits
2. Install Visual Studio 2008 SP1
3. Install Visual Studio Tools for Silverlight 3

If you reverse 2,3 the installer may not correctly detect thesituation and you might get into a state wherea mismatchedversion of the assembly is in the GAC and won't load (causing the package load failure).

Note
This set of instructions doesn't cover the case where you have Express editions installed alongside a paying edition of Visual Studio such as Visual Studio Pro, Developer Edition etc. If you have installed Express editions alongside a paying edition,your situation will vary depending on whether they have been updated to Service Pack 1 prior to installing the paying edition or not. You'll need to install service pack 1 again to make the paying edition work if you've SP'd your express edition prior to installing a paying edition. However you'll still need to install Silverlight Tools LAST.

Mark

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

I think we all agree that this is a mess (and needs to be adressed, at least for future versions).

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=microsoft.visualstudio.xaml&aq=0p&oq=mic&aqi=g-p3g7&fp=JXEMTJqWKpI

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http://bitbonk.spaces.live.com

Wow!! Looking at bitbonk's google link this seems to have been a big problem.

Peter

For those of you out there having this problem, I was also having the same problem with my Intellisense and XAML after installing the Silverlight and Expression tools v3.

I was able to get mine working by simply following the instructions in the error message.

1. Close Visual Studio 2008
2. Open the development environment command prompt (Start, All Programs, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio 2008 Tools, Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt)
3. Issue the following command at the prompt : devenv /resetskippkgs

After that IS is working like a champ... so it does work -- sometimes!

Hope it works for you too.

Good luck!

Drew Matalus