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I downloaded and installed Visual Studio 2013 Profession Trial on my Windows 7 64-bit computer ( RAM is 6 GB). But, when I start it for the first time, it says 'We're getting things ready. Thanks for your patience' and its been on for about an hour.

Is this normal with VS 2013?

screenshot of window that says "Visual Studio - We're getting things ready - Thanks for your patience." with five dots as a progress indicator

EDIT 1: I left my computer running the whole night, and by morning it had re-booted. After the re-boot, VS 2013 seems to be starting quickly. So, its hard to say why Visual Studio 2013 was taking hours to start up the first time.

Quango
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Sunil
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  • How's your network status? – yushulx Jan 17 '14 at 09:26
  • Internet connectivity is good on my side. I have re-booted my computer but even now its showing the same screen for the last few minutes. – Sunil Jan 17 '14 at 15:21
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    I'm having the same problem. Just tested download speed at about 40 mbs, or whatever the unit is, so don't think that's the problem. I've got other versions of VS running on my machine - don't know if that's a problem? Windows 7 64 bit. It's been about an hour so far, but in task manager it is still responding ... – Andy Brown Feb 04 '14 at 10:47
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    This happened to me, turns out I had to alt-tab to a sign-in dialog that was hidden *behind* the "please wait ..." splash screen. Durr. – Alex K. Feb 19 '14 at 17:03
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    This guy @AlexK. is cool. Why? Because he found the solution. But it is still loading regardless!! – Jamie Mar 28 '14 at 13:44
  • Before killing the process, run task manager and check whether the devenv process (which is visual studio) is actually using much CPU %. In my case I was installing VS 2015 Enterprise and it took about 10 minutes to get past this step. During the whole time it was using about 5-15% of CPU which I monitored using the task manager. – dodgy_coder Oct 11 '15 at 11:29
  • I just had this after updating and repairing VS2019. No dialog behind the window. Killed and restarted several times.We do have this virus scan service MalwareBytes which screws up nearly everything in your machine and it started again after rebooting the machine (I usually stop it as soon as I can). After stopping it and retrying, VS started up normally. It may be unrelated but it probably isn't. So I say disable your virusscanner and try again. – Martin Maat Dec 05 '19 at 14:07
  • Just had this problem with Visual Studio 2022. Maybe something wrong with the remote login service. – Pedro Lamarão Jan 28 '22 at 12:43

7 Answers7

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If the loading is taking a long time, Alt+Tab to find a login page hidden underneath the "We're getting things ready" window. Enter your Microsoft account credentials.

This answer was originally posted by Alex K in a comment.

Mathieu K.
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Rots
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  • If this is true, then how did the credentials get filled in my case, because by morning the problem had disappeared by itself on my computer. I had started the installation in late night. – Sunil Apr 14 '14 at 02:42
  • I wonder if the install only asks you once for credentials, the first time it runs? – Rots Apr 14 '14 at 02:49
  • For me, the problem started after the install was complete at late night, and I tried to start VS 2013 for the first time after the install. It seems like a strange problem. Why would it ask for someone's credentials when it starts the first time after install? It could do that after the main window opens. – Sunil Apr 14 '14 at 03:00
  • @Sunil In my case it's been running for 2 hours already and *there's no hidden login window*. I chose not to log in when it asked. Maybe it was the same for you. At this point I'm close to ditching the whole thing though. – Szabolcs Jun 18 '14 at 14:22
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    @Szabolcs, I think this is a problem with VS 2013 that Microsoft needs to resolve. Even I could not find any login screen when it happened with me. – Sunil Jun 18 '14 at 20:28
  • @Sunil After waiting for 2-hours, I just rebooted without letting it finish. It worked after that. I can't tell yet if anything got broken because of the force-reboot. – Szabolcs Jun 18 '14 at 20:44
  • @Szabolcs, Your story is identical to mine. I rebooted in early morning and then it worked. – Sunil Jun 18 '14 at 20:47
  • Anything in your Event Log from around the time it crashed? – Rots Jun 20 '14 at 09:01
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    It worked! Why \*slaps on own head\*, yes, *WHY* does the window spawn right behind the dialog? I just waited hours for nothing. #fail – MC Emperor Sep 15 '14 at 20:19
  • I pressed Win+M to minimize all minimizable windows. That shows the hidden window behind the VS window. The brought the hidden window to the foreground, but it was empty. I managed to close it, and then the normal VS window continued with the installation. – Francois Botha Nov 20 '14 at 09:48
  • This solution worked for me the first time I tried to login after the VS 2013.4 community edition's default 30 day trial period ended. The login window was hidden and I needed to Alt-TAB to get to it, then logged in using my live account. – dodgy_coder Jan 05 '15 at 00:57
  • @dodgy_coder - same here. After logging in it required some 5 more minutes until the IDE was finally opened, so be patient. – ysap May 18 '15 at 22:21
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    Applies to VS2017 RC as well. – jeffm Nov 18 '16 at 19:38
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    I went through my open windows with Alt+Esc when installing VS2017 RC, but I couldn't find the pop-under. I found an invisible window, though--one that responded to Alt+Spacebar, letting me seem to move it, resize it, etc., but without seeing it--which I closed with Alt+F4. Then found the pop-under. Can't help but think it had been spawned invisible the first time. Totally weird. – Mathieu K. Feb 23 '17 at 02:48
  • @Rots, consider, if you will, making this a community post, since it's another user's answer. – Mathieu K. Feb 23 '17 at 02:48
  • @MathieuK. converted. – Rots Apr 06 '17 at 23:26
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I had already gone past the credentials screen.

I left mine running for a while but eventually killed the process and restarted VS.

It started instantly.

Matt Canty
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    I have this problem. I've logged in successfully, and it's now saying, "We're preparing for first use." It will sit here indefinitely. If I kill it and restart, VS loads but as soon as it displays the UI it stops responding. – Tom Aug 14 '15 at 13:22
  • The `/resetuserdata` flag can be useful to clear your login, but I get the same problem whether I log in or not. – Tom Aug 14 '15 at 13:22
  • FWIW, I was running in a VirtualBox VM. Enabling graphics acceleration in the VM fixed the problem for me. I think this is because it uses some IE components to display various windows, which don't work well without graphics acceleration available. – Tom Jan 12 '16 at 15:32
  • Yes, it worked, but I lost my 3 hours before looking out to Google and then this link.. – himanshupareek66 Nov 28 '18 at 11:50
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I had no sign-on screen hiding behind the "We're Getting Things Ready". I ended the task in Windows Task Manager. Then I started Visual Studio again (no need to reboot). This time I noticed the option to "Sign In later". I selected this and it started up in just a couple of minutes. I then signed in after it started up. All seems to be working fine now.

Dominic Isaia
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I too experienced this odd first time start up 'hang' on a fresh install to a new PC. For what it's worth, my experience mirrored bassbytesbikes. I finally just killed and restarted it. No discernible ill effect... so far.

ScottWelker
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I came across this problem installing Visual Studio Premium 2013 in a VirtualBox VM. Specifically, I'd enter my login credentials and then it would hang on the 'Preparing for first time use' screen. If I killed VS and then restarted it, it'd bring up the main window but then hang before it displayed the startup page.

The solution for me was to enable 3D graphics acceleration in the VM settings. This seems to be because IE relies on 3D graphics and VS uses IE to display the start page (among other things).

Tom
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As an answer, I got the same issue while creating, openning projects at visual studio 2012. Then I searched a lot about it and I learned that they fixed that problem with Visual Studio 2013 with Update 5. I got the vs2013 with update 5 and everything works well now.

Berkay Yaylacı
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For my situation the firewall was blocking the connection to Microsoft's server

chris
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    Would you be able to go in more depth. I believe that might be my issue but I am not sure which rule I need to add/remove. – DeadlyChambers Aug 10 '15 at 16:30