Tag Archives: visual studio

Issue with Xaml Designer – An error occurred loading this property page

So after installing Visual Studio 2015 Update 2, my Xaml Designer decided to stop working. Every time I open the designer by clicking on a xaml file, it would show an error dialog that says “Visual Studio has encountered an unexpected error.” – not very helpful. Going to the menu, Options > Xaml Designer > General property page would yield an error “An error occurred loading this property page”.

I then tried re-installing Visual Studio 2015. Same issue. I then tried opening Expression Blend, it doesn’t work, but I got a some more interesting clues – it tells me to check ActivityLog.xml – In it, there was a telling error:

SetSite failed for package [XamlDesignerPackage][This access control list is not in canonical form and therefore cannot be modified.

Basically my permissions were corrupted somewhere in some file. I had a hunch. A test by logging on to a fresh Windows user account and opening VS xaml editor confirmed that the issue was limited to my profile account. I tried remove all traces of Visual Studio from profile but removing the obvious AppData folder didn’t fix the issue. There were just too many places it hides files. As a last resort, I reset all permissions on my profile folder such that I was the owner and had write access and surprise! it works!! Now I know what to try next time.

Quick Tip: The platform “Windows Mobile 6 Professional SDK (ARMV4I)” is not defined within Visual Studio.

If you are setting up Qt Visual Studio Addin in Vista and get this message when trying to add the Qt folder (in Qt Options > Qt Versions):
The platform “Windows Mobile 6 Professional SDK (ARMV4I)” is not defined within Visual Studio. Make sure you have installed the required SDK.
-or-
The platform “Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC SDK (ARMV4I)” is not defined within Visual Studio. Make sure you have installed the required SDK.

You need to make sure you have Visual Studio running in Administrator mode. You also need to be in Administrator mode when creating your WinCE project.

You can also type in the command line: checksdk -list to check that you have the correct Windows CE SDK installed.