Toolbox weird behavior!!!

Toolbox weird behavior!!!

• likestoski

  Hello, I thought I would add how I fixed this problem, and what I suspect might have been the cause.
  
  As everyone else, I had the same problem and it occured after I created a setup project for my VSTO Excel Application and then tried to test it on a computer with Visual Studio and VSTO currently installed. Every computer that I tested my project on, subsequently, had this problem where the toolbox appeared to be disabled.
  
  I was able to fix this problem on one computer by repairing the Visual Studio installation. The other computer wasnt as cooperative. I tried repairing the Visual Studio installation as well as the VSTO install. Without any luck, I tried repairing the MS VSTO Runtime installation. That seems to do the trick.
  
  I suspect the MS VSTO Runtime installation might have corrupted something....just a guess...
  
  
  

• Duie

  Hi,

  Sorry to hear about your issue; this is the first report that I'm aware of with this type of problem. It sounds like the toolbox is disabled because the document designer failed to load. I'm not sure why this would be occuring. If this is happening reasonably frequently, I would suggest attaching a debugger to devenv.exe (you can use another instance of Visual Studio). Attach both native and managed, and go to the exception dialog (from the Debug menu, choose Exceptions) and check Common Language Runtime Exceptions and Win32 exceptions. Then just do what you've been doing and hopefully the debugger will catch an exception(s) the next time you encounter the problem. If you can send us the callstack(s), we may be able to give you some more guidance on the problem.

  Sincerely,

  Geoff Darst

  Microsoft Visual Studio Team

  
  

• Confused4130

  when opening a new word solution the menus are enabled. just in an excel solution they are not working.
  

• cfendya

  What are you doing immediately before the toolbox becomes disabled Also, after it becomes disabled, does it become enabled just by viewing a user control in design mode or perhaps a different worksheet Did you protect the worksheet(s) in the project This would prohibit you from placing more controls on to the design surface of a worksheet.

  Regards,

  Steve

  
  
  

• GlassWalkerTheurge

  :(.... the Insert menu doesn't show anything neither the Excel Data....
  

• Jason Fransella

  Ha... found my answer on this post: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx PostID=309265&SiteID=1

  To recap:

  2. Create a Excel project in the VS to check if the Excel menu item accessible in VS. We saw same issue in Excel before. User can fix it by deleting the Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\Excel11.xlb

  
  

• cliffhanger9

  Thank you for your reply. Hopefully I will come back with the exception.... but what about the Excel Tools menu that is not displaying anything. It appears in the vs menu but do not expand to show the excel tools. It is always like that I dont recall it working.
  

• huahsin68

  Also the Excel menu bar which is merged in the VSTO menu does not open.

  :(

  
  

• greenmind

  I can't tell exactly after what action the toolbox becomes disabled. It is a sudden thing and it remains disabled even for any new workbook project. It becomes enabled if I perform a repair to the VSTO.
  

• xaka

  Hi,

  Is the Insert menu there and does it have Excel menu items in it What about Data--does Microsoft Office Excel Data exist and have items under it Another question would be whether inserting an Excel object in a Word document causes the menus to merge properly there. I have heard of a few cases where folks have had problems with menu merging, but as far as I know we've never been able to reproduce them and come up with a diagnosis. Again, it might be useful to attach a debugger to Visual Studio prior to creating/opening a VSTO project. If you try to catch Win32 / C++ exceptions perhaps there is one being thrown. Menu merging is all pretty standard--in response to certain OLE defined callbacks, Win32 APIs are used to insert additional menus/menuitems. Assuming it works in general on your machine, the most likely reason that I could guess for failure would be an unhandled exception that prevents the callbacks from being made.

  Sincerely,

  Geoff Darst

  Microsoft Visual Studio Tools For Office Team

  
  

• Benjamin Ray

  I am having the same exact menu behavior as you. I can click on Edit, Insert, Format, but nothing is happening.
  

• John Roper-Lindsay

  when i do a repair of VSTO Runtime by running C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\8.0\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Runtime\install.exe just the toolbox becomes enabled.
  

• pate

  Mr. AhnFIRE wrote:

  Ha... found my answer on this post: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx PostID=309265&SiteID=1 To recap: 2. Create a Excel project in the VS to check if the Excel menu item accessible in VS. We saw same issue in Excel before. User can fix it by deleting the Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\Excel11.xlb

  
  
  Thanks, I had the exact same problem and this solved it!
  
  The problem surfaced suddently when I was working on an installer project for an Excel Code Behind sheet.
  
  
• Toolbox weird behavior!!!