UWP Project not loaded (Update Required)

4
votes

I'm facing an annoying problem involving my installation of Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise. I just got into a cross platform mobile project and I have fetched the source code from version control. The solution consists of several mobile projects (Android, iOS) that work fine and a UWP project that refuses to load. It says on the solution explorer:

This project requires a Visual Studio update to load. Right click on the project and choose "Download Update"

After clicking "Download Update" I'm presented with this page: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/sdk-archive . I've tried downloading all three of the SDKs (I don't think it's an emulator issue so I haven't bothered download the emulator installers).

All three throw this error:

error message

I've tried modifying my Visual Studio installation from the control panel but as you can see the installer claims all Windows SDKs are currently installed:

installer

I've tried re-installing the SDKs. I've tried reinstalling Visual Studio 2 times, one of them involved a full uninstall by running

vs_enterprise.exe /uninstall /force

in a command prompt but to no avail.

Also when I try to create a fresh UWP Project the only platform I can target is the 10.0.240 build. I recall being able to target other versions in the past but the dropdown only contains this option now.

3
c#xamarinvisual-studio-2015uwp
Try opening the *.csproj file in a text editor and change "10.0.10586.212" to the closest version you have installed. – Decade Moon
@DecadeMoon All versions are installed. At least that's what the Visual Studio installer claims. It was one of the first things I tried but didn't work – dimlucas
Not all UWP versions are cross-compatible. 10240 can be combined with 10586, 10586 can be combined with 14393. And 10240 is NOT compatible with 14393. Be aware. – Yury Schkatula

3 Answers

4
votes

I finally solved it after quite a lot of research. I followed these steps:

  • Go to Control Panel > Programs & Features
  • Find Microsoft Visual Studio 2015, right click on it and select 'Change'
  • When the installer pops up select 'Modify'
  • Uncheck the whole 'Universal Windows Apps Development tools' section
  • Wait until the uninstallation is complete
  • Restart
  • Again go to Control Panel and find the SDK installers which apparently are not removed using the above method:

enter image description here

  • Uninstall them all
  • Restart
  • Visit this page: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/sdk-archive and download all three SDKs
  • Start by installing version 10.0.26624 and work your way up
  • After you're done go to control panel find the Visual Studio Installation, right click, click 'Change' then after the wizard loads select 'Modify'
  • Make sure every option in the 'Universal Windows Apps Development Tools' section is checked, click Next
  • After the installation of the SDKs and tools is complete restart your computer
  • The error should be gone now
0
votes

I ran into this error trying to add a Portable Class Library project to a solution. It occurred whether I asked it to target Windows Universal 10.0 or Windows 8.1.

The workaround I used is to ask it to also target ASP.NET Core 1.0, even though I wasn't using ASP.NET.

0
votes

I also ran into this which took me a lot of time to solve. Actually YOU DON'T HAVE TO REINSTALL ANYTHING! If you are totally sure your Visual Studio is up to date, just follow these steps and it will solve your problems: https://stackoverflow.com/a/35733823/3322347