Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Vis

Question

I updated my community edition of visual studio 2017 to 15.3.0

and I got this new build error

Build Failure. Error: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.VC.Interfaces, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. ========== Clean: 0 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========

there is no reference error and nothing new on my project except the new VS update.

I am developing an MVC 5 runs under 4.5.1 framework.

Answer 1

If you need to keep Lightweight Solution Load enabled, or don't have the option to disable it, then modifying your Visual Studio install to include "Desktop development with C++" will add the missing file and repair the issue.

Source: Microsoft Visual Studio Developer Community

Answer 2

resoolve it by deleting

".vs" Folder "packages" Folder "obj" Folders and Rebuild Solution

Answer 3

I had a similar experience, but with Enterprise.

The error persisted until I disabled Lightweight Solution Loading, but I'm including the other steps I took in case they were pre-requisites.

• I had installed the Azure Functions Support, which wanted me to restart Visual Studio, but I didn't do that until after I started getting the build error message.
• I re-ran Visual Studio installer and clicked "Modify", even though I didn't change any options, because it wanted to do something, saying my installation size would decrease by 15MB. (Some cleanup from the Azure Functions installation is my guess.)
• I disabled the Lightweight Solution Load, closes and re-opened the solution, and it finally tried to build. It failed and I got a lot of messages about running NuGet Restore and Build in parallel, but it ran. Once I did a manual NuGet Restore, the build worked.

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Disable Lightweight Solution Load

1. Tools ➜ Options ➜ Projects and Solutions ➜ General

2. Also disable Lightweight load in the Properties view of the Solution:

3. Restart Visual Studio

Answer 5

Deleting .vs folder worked for me