Visual Studio 2015 (Community) designer shows NullReferenceException for blank Universal App

Question

I\'m getting a bit frustrated by this, maybe someone has encountered a similar problem or has an idea how to fix it.

I upgraded to Windows 10.
I installed Visu

Answer 1

If you're using HP, this worked for me:

delete the "Platform" environment variable in System->Advanced System Settings->Environment Variables ...

In my case it said =HPD

Answer 2

Have you enabled your device for development? I was suffering this issue until I had enabled it.

Go to settings, then Update & security and then For Developers. Select Developer mode and you should be ok.

Full list of instructions here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn706236.aspx

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

I reported this to Microsoft via Visual Studio and they kindly got back to me with 2 suggestions and one of them worked, so I thought I'd share it here:

1. Please see the following known issue and see if it helps resolve your problem: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f34da155-a4ad-4933-ba82-071de9c7c0b3/uwp-apps-fail-to-launch-and-xaml-designer-crashes-if-visual-studio-and-windows-store-apps-are-both?forum=Win10SDKToolsIssues

2. If this doesn’t help, also try the following (replacing the path as appropriate):

   icacls "c:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\UnionMetadata\Windows.winmd" /grant *S-1-15-2-1:(RX)

Please note that I did not try the first suggestion as it didn't apply to me but the second one did resolve my problem. Make sure to run the above in a command line prompt with administrative rights.

Hope this will help others facing the same problem.