Visual Studio killed!

Which Stardock programs are you running? Wich one was the last one you installed before you noticed that your Visual Studio was broken?

I noticed you posted in the 'Enhanced Dialog'-thread. Did you try and uninstall EnhancedDialog? You can try and download the Stardock-Zapper https://www.stardock.com/files/odnt_zapper.exe and use it to uninstall the Stardock programs (I would start with Enhanced Dialog > reboot > test Visual Studio)

Unfortunately, I'm not 100% sure it was the Enhanced Dialog program that killed VS because I also installed ObjectDock Plus. I uninstalled every Stardock program (Window Blinds, DesktopX, IconPackager, ObjectDock and EnchancedDialog).
But the problem with VS resist.

Might be a registary thing... maybe going to a pre-install date on your computer will help.

Use system restore.

And make sure you don't have any spyware or adware on your computer.

I just had the same problem. I installed IconPackager 3, the previous version 2.5 was running just fine, then I installed version 3, and I thought to myself "hey, great - a new version, although it doesn't have any noticable new functionality, it has a nicer interface". Some days went by, and I applied some new icons. The next day - monday, I come home from work, click on Visual Studio .Net in hopes to get some more work done - "Microsoft Develpoment Environment: Unknown error". "Shit," I thought, "that must be that hotfix I applied through windows update". System Restore. No results. Uninstalled all updates. No results. "Well, I guess I'll have to reinstall". It took me three days to copy my data, reinstall windows, and set up my shit just the way i like it. I lost a lot of sleep over this. So i installed all my apps (IconPackager among others) - happy that finally I'll be able to get some work done. This was on Friday. I didn't do anything in Visual Studio on the weekend. Un Sunday evening i thought - I should get some work done.. nah, it'll wait. I'll download some icons just for fun. So I did that, fired up IconPackager, applied some icons and went to sleep. I come home this evening, really pissed at the world, bad day at the office. I try to run VS. "Microsoft development environment: unknown error". F*$K NO!! Not again. Then I had the revelation of looking it up in goolge. So i type "Visual Studio Unknown Error". It comes up with a link to Stardock forums. The forum was about some app called Enhanced Desktop or Dialog or something (ED). Suddenly everything falls into place. I would have never thought.. So i run add/remove programs from Control panel. Click Icon Packager, change/remove - and ho ho ho. The gray dialog box - "memory at address 0xXXXXXXXX can't be read". Uninstall doesn't work.
So I've just spent the last half hour going through the registry in safe mode, deleting everything that has "Stardock" and "IconPackager" in it, deleting all the files.
I've just restarted and Visual Studio runs again. Yeehaaw!! So if you've read all this - To sum up - I'm never using anything that comes from Stardock again! I've lost so much sleep over that piece of crap! And I would never guessed that IconPackager was causing this - it was the last thing on my mind.

ps.
Dear Stardock, before you release anything - test it, damn it.

Thanks very much ronaldz! I deleted all registry entries with 'stardock' in it and VS .NET is working again.

It is IconPackager indeed! I installed it and bang VS didn't work anymore. I deinstalled, deleted the shit from the registry, restarted and VS worked fine again.

I had the same problem with VS (Embarcadero's ER/Studio also). Unfortunately I did not find the registry fix and ended up rebuilding my machine. I did e-mail stardock support and they still have not responded (it's been about two weeks). I think I'm with ronaldz as far as stardock is concerned, time to find a new windows customization program.

I think we found and fixed this over the holiday weekend. It wasn't showing up for everyone, but some people reported being unable to drag items around on ObjectDock.

The fix is an updated iprepair.dll that's part of IP 3.00a (which I've made available via Stardock Central or use the page at stardock.com/support to be resent the full download link). You'll need a reboot after installing it.

Failing that, Start / Run / regsvr32.exe /u "c:\program files\stardock\object desktop\iconpackager\iprepair.dll" would work around it, but then you wouldn't have the custom icons you've applied displayed inside other apps (where possible).

The fix does not work. VS .Net still won't start after installing the latest build of IconPackager.
The regsvr32 trick does work. After deregistering the dll VS starts again. But IconPackager loses most of it's use without this dll.

Here's another workaround a little less technical, but seems to work too. I currently have 3.00a.091, and it still exhibits the same problem (originall). But, in IP I went to the tools menu and unchecked the menu item for Repair Shell Icons. Not exactly sure how the compares with previous post (in terms of functionality), but at least there was no registry editing. Reboot, and VS works now.

Msg to stardock - FIX THIS **** THING UP. I've just spent 4 hour repairing and re-installing visual studio, just to find this problem. I've been a stardock customer for 3 years, and have NEVER experienced a screw-up like this before. Please fix it ASAP

Such a shame a great idea like this was born, so sad it can't run right.
Thank goodness we don't have to pay for any of their products as our Company gets them all free. We install and test each one and so far we have uninstalled every single one.

IRT LMarrano - THANKS for that Fix- Simply Unchecked that checkbox, rebooted and back in business (wish I had seen that a LONG TIME AGO - had my whole system rebuilt at work because of this bug - 1 week lost)

Another interesting bug that is effected.

It appears that JASC - Paint Shop Pro 9 is effected as well.
I would try to start PSP, I could see it running in the Task Manager - but it never would display.

After this change/reboot, it now is functioning as it was supposed to.

Ah - what a pain