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Available on Visual Studio 2017, Installer, and newer releases
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Access Denied / Unknown Error / other issues when running on Win7 under multiple user contexts (Admin / normal)
Running Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017 Version 15.0.26228.9 D15RTWSVC - WITHOUT administrative permissions. While performing Menu action File/New/File the following error occurs: "Access denied (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)))". If running WITH administrative permissions the error doesn't occur.
ProcMon monitoring leads to follwing error entry: Event Class: Registry Operation: RegCreateKey Result: ACCESS DENIED Path: \REGISTRY\A{4B07AB80-9D14-4D29-A960-F48311529A9C}\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_f4938f75\General\SQM\Baseline TID: 6316 Duration: 0.0000936 Desired Access: Read/Write
I have the same problem. If I try again to add a new file, I get a different error, "Value does not fall within the expected range", and it still doesn't add the file.
@Andreas Schubert - what operating system are you on? Are you on Win7?
Yes, I'm running Win7 SP1. Same behaviour as described by Richard Brown. Normally I'm working without administrative permissions for security reasons. If working as administrator everything is fine.
Same here. Can't add files or even create a new project* (tried .net forms app and c++ console app - same result
Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
). Really, no one tried to do that without admin rights?! The numbers of non admin bugs I'm hitting is getting ridiculous...
* the new project dialog won't even load the first time: I'm just getting an empty dialog. Closing and hitting File -> New -> Project... again fixes it tho.
Here is part of the log file:
...
369 Entering function CVsPackageInfo::HrInstantiatePackage {30D5B2E6-64BF-422F-A2BF-5D5B4D66548F} VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:47.899
370 Begin package load [Settings Store Synchronization Delayed Init Package] {30D5B2E6-64BF-422F-A2BF-5D5B4D66548F} VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:47.899
371 End package load [Settings Store Synchronization Delayed Init Package] {30D5B2E6-64BF-422F-A2BF-5D5B4D66548F} VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:47.900
372 Warning Found templates with duplicate template ids at "D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\1033\SharedProject\SharedProject.vstemplate" and "D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Windows\1033\SharedProject\SharedProject.vstemplate" VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:48.726
373 Warning Error! Unable to access file (C:\Users\bjoern\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_e54598f8\ProjectTemplatesCache\cache.bin). VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:48.729
374 Entering function CVsPackageInfo::HrInstantiatePackage {4825B9A3-93E2-4327-9044-41F72EE7E5C9} VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:48.737
375 Begin package load [File Change Manager Package] {4825B9A3-93E2-4327-9044-41F72EE7E5C9} VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:48.737
376 End package load [File Change Manager Package] {4825B9A3-93E2-4327-9044-41F72EE7E5C9} VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:24:48.738
377 Warning Performance warning: String load failed. Pkg:{D15F5C78-D04F-45FD-AEA2-D7982D8FA429} (VisualBasicProjectSystemPackage) LANG:0409 ID:2 VisualStudio 2017/03/24 23:25:11.849
378 Should automatically check for an update VSPackage 2017/03/24 23:25:12.839
379 Next update check in '85585560' ms VSPackage 2017/03/24 23:25:12.839
380 Running in User Groups: Users
...
Are you personally blocked from using the product? (Can you personally run as admin to add the item?)
Please follow the solution below for a solution that will handle both Admin | Normal user.
Best regards,
Huy Nguyen, Visual Studio team
Yes, this work-around solves the problem. (As side-effect personal VS setting are lost.)
Thank You very much.
I had the same problem.
Deleting the file solved the problem.
Thank you
I'm under Windows 10 and I have the same issue with an ASP.NET project I used to open with VS2015 before. Now I have to run both VS2015 and 2017 as Administrator.
This is exactly the kind of issues I hope to NOT see when I'm installing a RELEASE version of a product.
For me, this also rebreaks every few days and after each update. It will also randomly forget settings and not start up (Access Denied). Deleting the folder in the workaround only works temporarily.
@TranstecJason So far the condition for this error to happen is
- You are using Windows 7
- You are part of the Administrators group on the machine
- You create the privateregistry.bin file as a normal user
After deleting the privateregistry.bin file, please try launching Visual Studio as Administrator. If the file is created with elevated permission, the permission should be correct.
I am not a member of the Admin group. I'm a normal user only. If I run VS as a LocalAdmin everything works fine. Let's say I delete the problem folder. Everything works fine for a few days, but eventually I will not be able to launch VS as a normal user and get "Access Denied". When I delete the folder, everything will be fine for awhile. Or if I update VS (as either user), I will get "Access Denied" thereafter. The error varies. Sometimes I can launch but maybe I can't create a new file/project or my settings are gone or I can't use performance profiling. Deleting the problem folder fixes everything, but only temporarily. I've never had an issue with any previous version of VS.
@TranstecJason Thanks for the information. If the normal user account cannot self-elevate, then it can be a different error.
If you rename %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_UniqueID for a back up, then launch Visual Studio as Administrator, does VS regenerate the folder?
@Huy Nguyen Sorry, I may be getting my errors mixed up. As @Alan Bourke said, the actual error is "Unknown Error". I received Access Denied when doing performance profiling (there's already an issue for that). To answer your question: I renamed the folder. I started VS with Run As. I closed it and the started VS normally. The folder was recreated with the original name.
Hi Su, Can you create a new report by using Report A Problem in Visual Studio (It's on the Help Menu under Send Feedback) since this issue has been closed for a long time? Thank you for your patience.
Hi Greg, would you please try to delete the privateregistry.bin file one more time to make sure VS did not re-use a privateregistry.bin that may have bad keys in it?
@Greg Ingram Thanks for getting back. Did you get Unknown Error when opening Visual Studio, or did you get an Access Denied error later when trying to debug WPF app?
We have not seen the issue with debugging WPF app like this. To identify where the Access Denied error is happening, would you please
1. Download Process Monitor from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sysinternals/processmonitor.aspx and extract to a local folder.
2. Launch Process Monitor and set the following filters:
a. Operation begins with Reg
b. Path begins with \REGISTRY
c. Result is not SUCCESS
3. Launch Visual Studio and reproduce the error.
4. Save the events and share the log with us (you can attach the log to a post and set permission to Microsoft Employees).
Thanks very much.
Thanks for sharing the log files, Greg. I searched for Access Denied in both files and both contain some Access Denied errors that can be ignored.
- The log file with Access Denied error does not contain any Access Denied error related to the private registry hive.
- The one without Access Denied error, on the other hand, has 2 Access Denied errors on the private registry hive, but I could see the debugger process running.
So I'm not sure if this error is related to the private registry hive. We can try capture the exception stack using ProcDump.
- Download ProcDump from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900.aspx and extract to a local folder.
- Open an Administrator Command Prompt and navigate to ProcDump folder.
- Run Procdump.exe -w devenv.exe -e 1 -n 1000 -f UnauthorizedAccess -ma > out.txt
- Launch Visual Studio and reproduce the error.
- Close Visual Studio
- ProcDump should generate some DMP files in the local directory if the exception is thrown. Please share the DMP files if they exist.
Thanks!
Hi, we are aware of registry corruption issue on Windows 7 and are investigating. Would you please let us know if your account is part of the Administrators group?
Also, when the Access Denied error happens, would you please run the attached program to collect information about the private registry hive:
- Download the attached Program.txt file.
- Launch a "Developer Command Prompt for
VS 2017"
- Run "csc Program.txt /target:exe"
- Run Program.exe and enter the path to
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_[UniqueID]\privateregistry.bin|privateregistry.user.bin
- Share the generated result.txt. You can
reply and attach the file.
Thanks very much!
How can I get this update offline? I can't use the environment to update. I get "Access to the registry key 'HKCU.....VisualStuio\Extensions' is denied". I also cannot use a web installer.
Hi,
To get the update offline, you can follow the instructions on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/install-vs-inconsistent-quality-network (or https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/create-a-network-installation-of-visual-studio) to generate an offline layout of VS 2017.
Additionally, after applying the fix, please delete Visual Studio app data folder under %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_[UniqueID]. UniqueID is different per installation.
Is the bootstrapper specific to the VS version? Meaning, do I have to download "vs_Professional.exe" again (I just did this mid-last week) or can I just regenerate the installation cache? I am blocked from downloading ".exe" and will have to go offsite. Needless to say, this is not an ideal process for my situation.
After every update I get an "Access denied" error. And still need to delete privateregistry.user.bin file to fix this problem. This is really annoying ... How can you say it is fixed, when it is not.
We're seeing new reports of a subset of the original issue. Even though the experience might be similar, the root cause may be different.
Would it be possible for you to open a new feedback issue so that we can diagnose the specific issue you are seeing? (It's not clear that all issues are the same.)
Thank you.
This should have been tested by the community before being released and marked as fixed.
@TranstecJason For 15.3 release, we've made the fixes for all access denied that we could reproduce on Windows 7,
- Using separate private registry file when a user is using VS in mixed Administrator | Standard User privileges
- Stop using volatile registry keys
However from telemetry and new feedback we are seeing cases when there can still be corruption on Windows 7 due to different ACL on registry keys. We are tracking this new issue with https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/79829/access-denied-when-trying-to-enableinstall-an-exte.html and we are actively investigating for a fix.
I'm sorry for the confusion due to multiple problems with private registry on Windows 7.
Does anyone on the VS team do a basic test to make sure the product works on Win 7, Win 8, etc....or is everyone only concerned about Win 10?
When VS run under Administrator, why would it create the registry file under User's %localappdata% ? These are per user locations. Are you talking about running under non-elevated Administrator and elevated Administrator? The issue doesn't seem about running under non-elevated Admin (even though it happens there, as well). The issue is about running under an non-Administrator User.
@Alex G You're correct, let me try to clarify with more information.
If a user is not part of the Administrators group, launch Visual Studio as Administrator will run Visual Studio as a different user. But in that scenario, this error will not happen, because the user can never elevate the same account.
This error only happens when a user is part of the Administrators group and can self-elevate. In that case Visual Studio will run as the same user, but with elevated permission. So VS can still write into %LocalAppData%...\privateregistry.bin in this state.
The timing when the privateregistry.bin file is created is important.
- If the privateregistry.bin file is created when the user is elevated, the error will not happen.
- If the privateregistry.bin file is created when the user is not elevated (running as a normal user), the error can happen. The error will happen if at some point later the user launches VS as administrator in self-elevate mode and VS in this state creates some registry keys in the privateregistry.bin
So this error will not likely happen if:
- A user is in the Administrators group. The user installs VS with the same account. As part of the installation, VS runs in self-elevated status and creates the privateregistry.bin file. This will apply the correct permissions, no matter if the user will later run VS as normal or admin.
This error will likely happen if:
- VS was installed by a different account in the Administrators group (perhaps through IT deployment).
- The current user is also part of the Administrators group on the machine. But at this point the privateregistry.bin file is not created yet.
- The current user launches VS as a normal user, and creates the privateregistry.bin as normal user, at this point the permissions is set to a very restrictive mode, only on Windows 7.
- The current user later launches VS as administrator and self-elevate. At this point the error will likely happen.
Best regards
Any chance this might get fixed pretty soon™? It is getting quite embarrassing that this bug is still there after releasing VS a month ago. The priority for it must be pretty low since you guys release a patch nearly every week. Show some love for Win7.
Sadly this is not working for me and moreover VS2017 is crashing every time I try to re-import my Settings
@koenigs This error only affects Windows 7 only. On Windows 10, running as Admin or Normal user does not affect the private registry file permission at all. Also, the error is happening when creating a new project, but your issue seem to be with opening an existing project. Would you please report a new error with more details? Thanks.
I'm on Windows 10 (brand new computer, not upgraded from previous version of Windows) so no this error is not only on Windows 7. After few hours spent on this "playing" with VS and IIS Express configuration I finally completely uninstalled VS2017. Time at my job is for productivity, not for fighting with my development tools. Now I have to open my project with Visual Studio as Admin. So I won't create a new report with more details sorry. I will give another try to VS2017 in one year, for the moment it seems a bit wobbly for a release version.
This does not work for me, in VS 2017 the Import/Export Settings command displays a blank wizard (no content in the window at all, just a Finish button and a Cancel button). I have already uninstalled and reinstalled VS 2017 once. I am running 15.1 on Win 7 Pro and my regular user does not have Admin privileges (I have a separate user account that is an Admin).
@Eric Maia Please ignore the first step if there is nothing to export and go to the next step to delete the privateregistry.bin file. We are trying to figure out how a user not in an Administrator group can get into this situation. Would you please let me know?
- How did you install VS 2017? Logged in as the Admin account or launch Admin account from your User account.
- Did you install any extensions from Market place?
- When running as the User account, did you launch VS elevated using the Admin account? Or any VS activities required elevation?
Best regards,
Huy Nguyen, Visual Studio team
@Huy Nguyen I deleted the privateregistry.bin file and I was able to create the new project.
I installed VS 2017 by elevating my privileges with my admin user account (I ran the installer, it said I need admin, I entered my admin user credentials (username/password) and completed the install). I was logged into windows as my regular user (I don't log in as my admin). I still have VS2015 installed as well.
I don't think I have installed any extensions in VS 2017 (I first installed it just last week). I have not launched VS2017 as admin, though I do launch VS2015 as admin for certain projects when I need to use IIS instead of IIS Express.
Thanks
ok. i find
at privateregistry.bin
C:\Users{myuser}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_923b06dc
and deleted and now it opens.
tanx
but plz solve it in next vertions.
thank
Hi, VS 2017 15.5 and later should have a fix for the registry permission issues when running as Standard User on Windows 7. Since you deleted the privateregistry.bin file under %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_[UniqueID] and VS will generate a file with the correct permissions copied from HKCU key.
If you still experience this issue after 15.5, please open a new feedback item for further investigation.
Thanks for helping us build a better Visual Studio!
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