Can't open vs2008 project after vs2015 uninstall

Question

I have Visual Studio 2008 and 2012 installed. Recently, I also installed Visual Studio 2015 but later uninstalled it. Now I can't open my compact framework project in Visual Studio 2008.

Unable to read the file project 'Projectname.vbproj'. MSbuildToolsPath is not specified for the ToolsVersion "14.0" defined at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\14", or the value specified evaluates to the empty string.

Solution 1

As described in this link:

1. Make sure Visual Studio 2010 is completely uninstalled (go to “Control Panel -> Programs -> Programs and features” and make sure it is not listed)
2. Make sure the following registry keys do not exist in the machine: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\4.0 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersion\4.0

Note: If you are working on a 64bit OS you will need to delete them from the 32 bit part of the registry. To accomplish that click “Start Menu -> Run…” and type the following command:

%WinDir%\SysWOW64\regedit.exe

However in my case I replaced "4.0" for "14.0" and it worked.

Solution 2

Just download and install MSBuild Tools for VS 2015 from the following link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=48159 this will fix the problem.

Comments

[imgen]

Thank you for the answer, it has solved an annoying puzzle for me

[Bugs]

This worked for me also. I've just done an edit to provide some context to the link should the link die in the future. Got my upvote though.