Visual Studio 2019 and 2022 extensions incompatible projects

[zeiddev]

Relatively recently my AI installer project stopped being compatible inside both Visual Studio 2019 and 2022 (I use both for different projects). I cannot work out why. In response I upgraded my AI to the latest version and there are no new versions of VS to upgrade to.

When I start up VS I get the error message:

Screenshot 2024-01-08 165833.png (17.37 KiB) Viewed 10389 times

Here is the relevant section of the activity log

<entry>
<record>636</record>
<time>2024/01/08 17:10:18.955</time>
<type>Error</type>
<source>VisualStudio</source>
<description>CreateInstance failed for package [AdvInstVSIntegrationPackage]Source: &apos;mscorlib&apos; Description: Could not load file or assembly &apos;file:///c:\users\david\appdata\local\microsoft\visualstudio\16.0_ae6ef5d4\extensions\dtiuxamq.af4\AdvInstExtensionVSIntegration.vcs16.dll&apos; or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.&#x000D;&#x000A;System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly &apos;file:///c:\users\david\appdata\local\microsoft\visualstudio\16.0_ae6ef5d4\extensions\dtiuxamq.af4\AdvInstExtensionVSIntegration.vcs16.dll&apos; or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.&#x000D;&#x000A;File name: &apos;file:///c:\users\david\appdata\local\microsoft\visualstudio\16.0_ae6ef5d4\extensions\dtiuxamq.af4\AdvInstExtensionVSIntegration.vcs16.dll&apos;&#x000D;&#x000A; at System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly._nLoad(AssemblyName fileName, String codeBase, Evidence assemblySecurity, RuntimeAssembly locationHint, StackCrawlMark&amp; stackMark, IntPtr pPrivHostBinder, Boolean throwOnFileNotFound, Boolean forIntrospection, Boolean suppressSecurityChecks)&#x000D;&#x000A; at System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly.nLoad(AssemblyName fileName, String codeBase, Evidence assemblySecurity, RuntimeAssembly locationHint, StackCrawlMark&amp; stackMark, IntPtr pPrivHostBinder, Boolean throwOnFileNotFound, Boolean forIntrospection, Boolean suppressSecurityChecks)&#x000D;&#x000A; at System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly.InternalLoadAssemblyName(AssemblyName assemblyRef, Evidence assemblySecurity, RuntimeAssembly reqAssembly, StackCrawlMark&amp; stackMark, IntPtr pPrivHostBinder, Boolean throwOnFileNotFound, Boolean forIntrospection, Boolean suppressSecurityChecks)&#x000D;&#x000A; at System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly.InternalLoadFrom(String assemblyFile, Evidence securityEvidence, Byte[] hashValue, AssemblyHashAlgorithm hashAlgorithm, Boolean forIntrospection, Boolean suppressSecurityChecks, StackCrawlMark&amp; stackMark)&#x000D;&#x000A; at System.Reflection.Assembly.LoadFrom(String assemblyFile, Evidence securityEvidence)&#x000D;&#x000A; at System.Activator.CreateInstanceFromInternal(String assemblyFile, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityInfo)&#x000D;&#x000A; at System.AppDomain.CreateInstanceFrom(String assemblyFile, String typeName)&#x000D;&#x000A;&#x000D;&#x000A;WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF.&#x000D;&#x000A;To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1.&#x000D;&#x000A;Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging.&#x000D;&#x000A;To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog].&#x000D;&#x000A;</description>
<guid>{634D2762-4905-4843-B74C-649D410524F9}</guid>
<hr>80004005 - E_FAIL</hr>
<errorinfo></errorinfo>
</entry>

I am not sure how to fix this. Any help appreciated.

Thanks

[zeiddev]

What is really strange is that I removed the extension, but I still get the error message coming up!

[zeiddev]

I managed to resolve this by repairing both versions of Visual Studio.

One thing that was not obvious was that even though they were both repaired the projects still showed as being incompatible. I had to reload them inside the solution for them to be recognised.

[Liviu]

Hello,

It's great to hear that everything is now working as expected.

Appreciate you taking the time to share the solution. It's likely to be beneficial for other users encountering a similar situation.

Best regards,
Liviu