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My toolbox is empty.

Obviously, I'm not the first. I read this question and this other question, but that didn't help.

I click here... enter image description here

I get this window...

enter image description here

With instructions that say: "...Drag an item onto this text, to add it to the toolbox..."

Sounds good; from where do I get such items to drag?

Community
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User.1
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    What kind of project are you creating? Also, what file is currently active? Your toolbox will change depending on what items are available for the current file that is being edited. For instance, I develop a lot of ASP.NET applications, if my javascript file is active, my toolbox is empty. If my asp.net file is active, my toolbox is full of options. – Howard Renollet Jun 02 '14 at 14:42

3 Answers3

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The toolbox is empty because there is no project loaded.

The toolbox is populated with tools/controls according to the type of the current project. The controls are different for MFC than they are for ASP.NET, for example. If you haven't loaded any project, Visual Studio can't populate the toolbox.

Either open an existing project, or go to File -> New Project to create a new one.

Cody Gray - on strike
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Have you tried right-clicking on it and selecting the "Reset Toolbox" option? You can also try to manually add specific tools to it by using the "Choose Items..." option.

A common suggest is also to go into the Visual Studio 2010 Directory and delete all of the .tbd files within the following directory (Related) : 

C:\Documents and Settings\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0"

Although if neither of these options work, you will really want to consider possibly reinstalling / repairing Visual Studio.

Tanner_Gram
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Is your project running? I noticed that my toolbox is empty when I am debugging the project. Try stopping debugging.

Seth
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  • cody gray already gave this answer. Please feel free to upvote his answer, if you agree with him. If have any additional information to provide, please edit your answer. – Skandix Apr 15 '19 at 19:35