How to rebuild the Visual Studio Toolbox?

Question

The toolbox in Visual Studio Professional 2008 has somehow ended up with 12 instances of each control. They are just the standard controls, no third party controls, and I have no third party plugins.

Is there a way to rebuild the toolbox to correct this issue with the dupes? I've been living with it for a while, but it's pretty annoying.

score 24 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 12 '09 at 19:48

24

Did you try right clicking the Toolbox and selecting "Reset Toolbox"?

That should reset it to the defaults.

answered Aug 12 '09 at 19:48

Brandon

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This worked for Visual Studio 2010 adding the surface controls 4 times too. – Zamboni Dec 27 '10 at 23:58

score 24 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 28 '10 at 16:59

24

You can also go into the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0" and delete the *.tbd files. I have had to do this a couple times to get rid of duplicate items and when Reset Toolbox crashes without warning.

answered Jan 28 '10 at 16:59

Brian Ensink

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In my case, Visual Studio crashed while using the Forms Editor or performing "Reset Toolbox", but your solution worked well, thanks. – Jürgen Steinblock Mar 17 '10 at 07:46
See [Jonx answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/4329415/199364) for more recent versions of Windows. – ToolmakerSteve May 21 '17 at 08:09

score 13 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 01 '10 at 21:36

13

"Reset Toolbox" didn't work out for me.

Deleting the *.tbd in the following dir on Windows 7x64 worked for me... C:\Users[Current user]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0

answered Dec 01 '10 at 21:36

Jonx

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I had VS crashing every time I accessed the Toolbox window. Deleting the .tbd files fixed it, thanks! – Matt Connolly Aug 09 '12 at 23:53

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 12 '09 at 19:48

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Actually I just figured it out. You can right click on the Toolbox and click "Reset Toolbox." this fixed my issue. I'll leave this here in case anyone else has the same problem in the future.

answered Aug 12 '09 at 19:48

Travis Collins

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Sometimes "Reset Toolbox" does not work and generates an operating system error, so you have to delete the .tbd files. – AMissico Mar 24 '10 at 01:38

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 15 '11 at 03:44

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Reset toolbox also helped for me to reset DevExpress duplicate controls.

answered Nov 15 '11 at 03:44

Alexanderius

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FWIW, I had the *opposite* experience when using the competing *DevComponents DotNetBar*: Every time I Reset Toolbox, it added *another duplicate*! Had to delete the *.tbds to get rid of them. – ToolmakerSteve May 21 '17 at 08:14

How to rebuild the Visual Studio Toolbox?

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