This problem was caused by invalid authoring of the Linux workload.

There's two workarounds:

- Uninstall the "Linux Development with C++" workload.

or

- Apply the same fix we'll be shipping in the first servicing of 15.4.

The "fix" is a number of steps:

1) Close down all instances of Visual Studio.

2) Go to <vs install root>\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\Linux and delete the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Cmake.Package.dll that's there. It shouldn't be there. It should be one level up (where there should already be another copy).

3) Start an admin command prompt

4) CD to <vs install root>\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake and edit the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Cmake.Package.pkgdef file.

5) Add the following lines to the pkgdef file:

[$RootKey$\BindingPaths{F50A0AB8-B1FA-4901-BA52-1AF791ABA4B1}]
"$PackageFolder$"=""

6) Save the file

7) CD to <vs install root>\Common7\IDE

8) Run Devenv.com /setup.

9) Run Devenv.exe /setup

CMake support and Linux development should now be working.

If for some reason that doesn't work, there are some things you can check.

a) Make sure the pkgdef file is correct. Try printing it out on the command line using "type" to make sure CR/LF is correct. This file is read by devenv during the /setup command and it uses it to update its internal registry. If the CR/LF's are off, it won't load and the solution won't work.

b) If for some reason it still doesn't work, try deleting the following directory : %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_<hash>\ComponentModelCache. This is a cache of all of the assemblies and how they talk to each other with MEF. The MEF cache needs to be updated for the workaround to work. Deleting it will force an update.