This does not appear to be fixed in 15.2 (26430.12)

I"m still getting the Access Denied error when trying to run a WPF app using v15.3 Preview 2. I have not looked into it much, but still get the error.

Huy Nguyen sorry for delay. I just noticed your comment. I tried deleting both the privateregistry.bin and privateregistry.user.bin files, opened VS 2017 V3 Preview 2.1 and got the same error.

I got the Access Denied error later when trying to debug WPF app.

I tried another test and found something odd. I performed the following:

1. Launch VS2017.3 Preview 2.1
2. Created a WPF app (the usual File > New Project > WPF app.
3. Wait for everything to load
4. Clicked Start (to load and debug app).

I did the steps above twice, but saved in different locations.

1. C:\Users\MyUserName\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Projects
   
   1. This is the out-of-box location for VS projects.
   2. Success. I did not get the Access Denied prompt.
2. D:\MfgIt\TFS\Dev\Sw\Int
   
   1. This is a local drive on development machine our team uses to be consistent.
   2. Failed. This is when I get the Access Denied prompt.
   3. The weird thing is I can open this app using the latest VS2015 and will load/debug fine.

Having the following apps created in both directories above, I followed your steps and attached with file names labeled to show the one with and without errors while using VS2017. I changed the extension from PML to Log in order to attach. Hope this helps.

logfile-withaccessdeniederror.log

logfile-withnoaccessdeniederror.log

If VS ever creates volatile keys (as Mr. Huy Nguyen hinted), then MS programmers need to keep in mind the following pitfalls:

1. You'll gen an error if you try to create a non-volatile key under a volatile key.

2. If you create a key specifying a few levels of subkeys, Windows will create these levels if they don't exist. BUT if you want to create a volatile subkey, and windows creates those non-existing upper level subkeys for you, they all will be created volatile. If you then try to create a non-volatile subkey under one of those newly created keys, this operation will fail.

Thus, to avoid much grief with volatile subkeys, make sure your RegCreateKey call to create a volatile key takes an existing parent key handle and only creates a single level of volatile subkey.

(Thanks Raymond Chen for the recent article on his blog)

This issue is beyond annoying. I have version 15.2 installed on Windows 7, and it's the 5th time that I have to delete privateregistry.bin

Thank you MS for selling a beta-level product at full price.

This issue has been fixed and is now available in our latest update. You can download the update via the in-product notification or from here: https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/ Thanks to everyone who provided feedback and votes for this problem.

Quick update on the status of this problem:

For "Unknown Error" starting VS on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10: This problem is not related to the private registry file. A fix for this problem is available now for the latest version of both Visual Studio 2017 (https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/) or Visual Studio 2017 Preview (https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/pre).

For "Unknown Error" starting VS or Access Denied on Windows 7:

Please try this work-around first, especially if the current user account is a member of the Administrators group on the machine.

1. Close all Visual Studio instances
2. Delete the file %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_[ID]\vspdmc.lock
3. Start Visual Studio again

If deleting vspdmc.lock does not work, we will need to reset the private registry file

1. Export your current settings using Tools | Import and Export Settings... (this step is optional and may fail)
2. Close all Visual Studio instances
3. Delete %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_f4938f75\privateregistry.bin file (The ID after 15.0_ may be different per machine)
4. Start VS as an Admin user if the current user account is a member of the Administrators group on the machine. Otherwise start VS.
5. Import your current settings back.

We've identified 2 potential issues with private registry file on Windows 7 and implemented fixes for them. The fix will be available first on Visual Studio 2017 Preview and we will notify the community when it is.

Best regards,
Huy Nguyen, Visual Studio team

I am also experiencing what @TranstecJason is experiencing - I updated to v15.1 (26403.7 ) this morning and while it was OK initially I eventually started getting 'Unknown Error' when launching the IDE as normal user or 'run as administrator'. I once again had to delete privateregistry.bin and run the IDE as administrator to get it working again.