Visual Studio 2012 opens packages as line of text instead of package?

Question

Just installed this as a new stand alone option opposed to upgrading from 2008 Essentially I open Visual Studio, go to file, open-> file then when I attempt to open a package saved from 2008 (dtsx) and instead of prompting me for a password then opening the package, it opens a line of text that is something like: "?xml version="1.0"? EncryptedData Type="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element" Salt="AnoTQ/DZKA==" etc.......

I have uninstalled and reinstalled and have no idea what could be causing this... I was told to install data tools for VS 2012 but was told they are already installed when I tried that route...

At my wits end,.... hopefully someone has encountered this before and has an easy fix :)

Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2012 Version 11.0.61030.00 Update 4 Microsoft .NET Framework Version 4.5.51209

Installed Version: Professional

LightSwitch for Visual Studio 2012
Microsoft LightSwitch for Visual Studio 2012

Office Developer Tools
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Visual Basic 2012
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Visual C# 2012
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Visual F# 2012
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Visual Studio 2012 Code Analysis Spell Checker
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Visual Studio 2012 SharePoint Developer Tools
Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 SharePoint Developer Tools

PreEmptive Analytics Visualizer 1.0 Microsoft Visual Studio extension to visualize aggregated summaries from the PreEmptive Analytics product.

They're lying to you. Under Help, About you should have "Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services Designer", "Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services Designer", "Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Designers " and possibly "Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools" — billinkc
Billinkc: Thank you for this! I was already thinking along those lines but needed confirmation. I think I need to uninstall, then wipe the registry of anything related to VS 2012 then reinstall. I will post back if this indeed solved the issue. Just floors me that SSDTBI can install features but not uninstall features... Seems I have to uninstall the entire program just to fix a simple addon. — user3486773
No need to go to that extreme, just install SSDT-BI and off you go See stackoverflow.com/a/14163142/181965 — billinkc

user3486773 user3486773 · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-29T22:46:51

Billinkc: Thanks so much for all your help. The issue was that when running SSDT-BI the installer thought it was already installed and therefore would not let me finish the installation.

THE ISSUE: SSDTB was previously installed and removed but under start-> programs-> SQL Server 2012-> SQL Server Data tools was shown as a unknown exe icon... and when I clicked on it, you guessed it, it didn't really exist. Windows asked me if I wanted to remove it since it didn't exist, I clicked ok, and was able to install SSDT-BI with no problem and viola! no isssues!

I really hope this saves someone else 8 hours of beating head against the wall as that is how much time this issue cost me.

Visual Studio 2012 opens packages as line of text instead of package?

1 Answers