Hi!

Yesterday I installed Visual Studio 2008 Professional on my stationary PC at home. During installation I had some issues with the installation of .NET Framework 3.5 but it was resolved after I manually downloaded it from Microsoft's web site.

Anyway...I finished the installation and decided to check out the new Split-view feature, which didn't work as intended. Server controls I added ended up in large grey boxes with a red error text:

Error Creating Control - TestPanel
The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Design.ExtenderInformationServiceProvider' threw an exception.

That's not exactly what I wanted to see from such a new and promising product like Visual Studio 2008.

Does anyone know why that error comes up, and if so...how do I resolve it?

 Thanks in advance!

//Marcus [Sweden]

Very interesting issue, I haven't seen this problem. Did you had VS 2008 Beta 2 installed before? Did you make sure that was all uninstalled? The link below will give you a list of programs that NEED to be uninstall before you attemting a new installation:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/11/20/steps-to-uninstall-vs-2008-beta2-before-installing-the-vs-2008-final-release.aspx

If you never had any VS2008 installed before, I would recommend to re-install VS2008 and post any error here.

Thanks for the answer and the link! Gonna check it out and maybe try a repair.

On my PC at home I've never had VS 2008 Beta 2 installed. I still have Visual Studio 2005 installed but I don't think that should be a problem.

As for uninstalling stuff before you install Visual Studio 2008...shouldn't the installer check for that and warn?

If you never had VS 2008 Beta 2 installed that link is not relevant for you, the installation should be clean and easy, VS2005 is not a problem. Please make sure to log the issue at installation and post it here, MS people are here and they can give you more instruction to make sure is not an installation bug.

Also what OS are you using BTW?

I tried to repair Visual Studio 2008 but the problem still remains. Haven't actually encountered any issues during installation. The problem just arises when I'm using design- or split-view.

The OS I'm currently running is Windows Vista Business (32).

Also uploaded a screenshot which can be found here:

http://www.anma.se/2008_exception.gif

I've had exactly the same problem with almost exactly the same configuration (VS 2008 clean install on Vista, side-by-side with VS 2005).

EDIT: Oh and a couple of things that may be relevant:  When I load a web project in VS 2008, I get the following error: Package Load Failure, Package 'Visual C++ Resource Editor Package' has failed to load properly...

If the target framework is 3.5 (which it is by default) I get a 'Child nodes not allowed' error in the <@ Page directive at the top of the page and an "'Error Creating Control' Duplicate component name 'Button1'..." when trying to show a button in the designer.

If I change the target framework to 2.0 the 'Child Nodes' error goes away but I get the original ExtenderInformationServiceProvider error.

Perhaps you have early version of Ajax Toolkit installed? VS 2008 requires specific version, please look at the toolkit Web site.

Mikhail, I thought that AJAX 3.5 is installed with VS 2008 Release, I didn't had to do anything myself

ASP.NET Ajax is indeed installed, but Ajax Toolkit (Ajax extenders) is not. Toolkit is not part of the Visual Studio, it is a separate project with its own release timeline.

Thanks for the clarification.

Anyone found the solution? It's really annoying not being able to use new features in Visual Studio 2008...

Can you list versions of System.Web.dll, System.Web.Extensions.dll and AjaxToolkit installed opn the machine?

Same problem here, will post the .dll versions later today.

Same thing here, on a fresh Vista install it works, but on a PC with VS2005 already installed it does the Design view error.

Here are the version info if this could help:

• System.Web: 2.0.0.0
• System.Web.Extensions 1.0.61025.0
• Ajax Control Toolkit 1.0.11119.20010

P.S. Same DLL versions on the working PC

What does the error on the control say?

When you first copy a control, it says:

 "Error Creating Control - Button1  Duplicate component name 'Button1'. Component names must be unique and case-insensitive" (Note that no other controls are on the page at this point)

Then I rename the control and it says:

"Error Creating Control - btnTest  The type initializer for 'Microsoft.Web.Design.ExtenderInformationServiceProvider' threw an exception"

If I open an existing page, all controls will display this error.

Thanks!

This sounds like this issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921019 Second error may be result of the first one. What version of System.Design do you have?

I uploaded an image of the two exceptions in Visual Studio.

They can be found here:

http://www.anma.se/VS_2008_Exceptions.gif

First one when adding a control to a new created Web Site.

Second one when having renamed the control.

Here's the System.Design version: 2.0.50727.312

It should be 2.0.50727.1427

It seems like you don't have .NET 3.5 RTM bits.