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I Have visual Studio 2010 Professional, and somehow my toolbox has become virtully empty, I Have

Reporting

ReportViewer

Visual Basic Power Pack

a few basic items like line and oval

General

-EMPTY
  1. Restarting the pc
  2. Installing latest dx
  3. running VS with /resetSettings
  4. Running VS with /Safemode
  5. Re-installing
  6. Repairing
  7. Resetting Toolbox
  8. Clicking "Show All Items", this does show most things, however I cannot use any(They de-coloured, and when I try drag onto form I get the 'cannot perform' cursor and wont work), and things like buttons text boxes are still not showing.

I Have had this problem for going on 2 weeks, and was getting away with hand coding most things, however this needs to be sorted

Steven Dall
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  • I found if I changed the took off the compatibility mode then all the items are back, however if I run under XP service pack 3, it doesn't show the tools again. I find that if I dont compile in this mode however I get issues on the machines the apps get installed on. – Steven Dall Mar 01 '12 at 12:13

3 Answers3

5

Beware that if you're trying to debug your project, the toolbox is not available and therefore appears empty. Then what kind of project you created? This would allow us to learn more about your problem. Finally if nothing works try to completely remove Visual Studio and reinstall of your computer. Also trying to install Visual Studio on another computer to see if the toolbox appears. Maybe it's your computer to a problem.

Bruno Fedrigo
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The toolbox will also appear empty if you don't have the designer open and you are viewing code.

SoftwareCreations
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Using VS2010 Express, trying to design in VB.net, suddenly only the General bar of my Toolbox showed. I was able to solve my problem. Maybe my solution will work for your readers too.

What happened to create the problem?: 1) I created an empty form. 2) I closed VS2010. 3) Using Notepad, I copied the form code of another form to my current form. 4) Using Notepad, I corrected the class name of the current form. 5) I restarted VS 2010. 6) The toolbox was empty. HORROR.

What did I do to solve the problem?: 1) Right-click in the empty space of the toolbox. 2) Choose Reset Toolbox. 3) The toolbox did not fill up. 4) Tried to open the form designer. 5) This failed, because of missing objects, that were present in the other form. 6) I corrected the errors that were caused by step 5 in the code window. (I removed the handles and made references to form objects into comments.) 7) I opened the form designer. 8) I opened the now correct toolbox.

Step 6 of my solution seems to be the key. Good luck!

Evert
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