When I'm trying to open any solutions that worked fine before in Visual Studio 2012, the error "Package 'Visual C++ package' failed to load" keeps showing up. And the solution can't be opened.

I'm not sure what's wrong with my Visual Studio 2012 installation.

  1. click the TOOLS--->VISUAL STUDIO COMMAND PROMPT to open the command window
  2. input the command "devenv /Setup"
  3. open the visual studio 2012 again, it will works.

Source: http://happyivyli.blogspot.com/2013/07/visual-c-package-failed-to-load.html

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    I was just about to reinstall VS2012, great find! – EJA Jul 26 '13 at 16:02
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    This also worked for VS2013 – D.Rosado May 21 '15 at 8:52
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    after typing devenv /Setup it just sits there no error no nothing – Jonathan Caballero May 22 '15 at 16:17
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    This worked for me despite showing an error message ("not authorized" or something). Restarted Visual Studio afterward, and then it worked. – Josh1billion Oct 17 '15 at 3:32
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    For anyone like me who can't find the VS Command Prompt in VS2013, it's in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\Shortcuts – Tharwen Jan 2 '16 at 21:59

Running command prompt from inside Visual Studio.

For easier access, you can add the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt or any other command prompt to the Tools menu on Visual Studio, by adding it to the external tools list. This is how you can accomplish that:

  1. Open Visual Studio.

  2. Select the Tools menu and choose External Tools...

  3. On the External Tools dialog box, choose the Add button. A new entry appears.

  4. Enter a Title for your new menu item such as Command Prompt.

  5. In the Command field, specify the file you want to launch such as %comspec% or C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe.

  6. In the Arguments field, specify where to find the specific command prompt you want to use such as /k "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat" (this will launch the Developer Command Prompt installed with Visual Studio 2015). This value needs to be changed according to your Visual Studio version and installation location.

  7. Choose a value for the Initial directory field such as Project Directory.

  8. Choose the OK button. After that, the new menu item is added and you can access the command prompt from the Tools menu.


  1. Right-click the Visual Studio icon
  2. Choose Run As Administrator
  3. Click the menu TOOLS → *Command Prompt** to open the command window
  4. Input the command "devenv /Setup"
  5. Open Visual Studio again, and it will work.
  • How will this help fix the problem "Package 'Visual C++ package' failed to load"? – Peter Mortensen Oct 8 '17 at 17:29
  • @Peter, I don't know abou you for it helped me with similar problem. – bruziuz Jul 9 '18 at 14:38

None of the solutions I found around, including those listed here, seemed to help. What did work was going in the software install/uninstall management, right clicking on Visual Studio and choosing "change" (that's where you would normally uninstall something from).

That should pop up the Visual Studio package manager, and from there you can choose repair.

In my case, looking at the systems backlog and restore points, it seems it was one of the Visual C++ redistributables, possibly installed by some game, that compromised the environment.

This is on Windows 8.

  • This was the only solution that worked for me on VS2013. – Anthony Apr 21 '15 at 10:44

Possibly same fix as this https://stackoverflow.com/a/21266545/990618

Check your User environment variables for VCHOME, VCINSTALLDIR and vsinstalldir.




X:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\



depending VS 2012 or 2013.

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