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In the new Visual Studio 2015 RC the XAML designer does not bring up a UI for a C# Windows Universal project but it does for a C++ Windows Universal project. This occurs with both the Professional and Community editions. Has any one experience the same problem and have a workaround/solution?

David Schmidlin
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  • Might be a stupid question, but is the visual designer just hidden because the text designer is full view (tab at the bottom of the screen that says "Design")? – Ron Beyer May 01 '15 at 20:33
  • Good suggestion, I looked for that but the Design tab doesn't even show up. – David Schmidlin May 01 '15 at 20:40
  • I had the same issue. I'm currently reinstalling from scratch to see if maybe it was a glitch. – MiltoxBeyond May 02 '15 at 02:17
  • I suspect this might be because I am on a Windows 8.1 system and not a Windows 10 system. I was able to create a Windows 8.1 Universal app using C# and the XAML designer loaded as expected. – David Schmidlin May 04 '15 at 23:16
  • Same problem here, using Windows 8.1 as well. Guess that's the trigger then. – Daniel Lemke May 05 '15 at 17:53
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    Verified that when Visual Studio 2015 Community is Installed on Windows 10 the XAML designer does show up for a C# Universal App. – David Schmidlin May 05 '15 at 21:57

8 Answers8

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I have the same issue, when I upgraded the Win10 SDK from 10240 to 10586, set the project properties->Application->Target version to Windows 10(10.0;Build 10240), the design view shows up again.

screenshot of the setting to change

Werner Henze
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Ivan
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    This solved the issue for me. It seems to be a bug with the build targets for Windows 10 Build 10586. Setting the target version to 10240 made the designer show up again. – Leon Lucardie Dec 07 '15 at 08:25
  • This worked for me as well.. cmon microsoft get your stuff together!! – krilovich Feb 29 '16 at 14:50
  • It is for sure the answer as it solved the issue for me as well although it wasn't as easy as stated here. I added an updated answer. – Matthis Kohli Jul 05 '16 at 13:26
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If the XAML designer is failing to open, check the "Flag" notifications in the top right corner. You might notice a message that your Windows 10 build needs to be updated.

1: enter image description here

The target platform can't be newer than the Windows 10 build you're actually running.

sKhan
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Dominic Zanardi
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To help clarify this a bit -

If you are building a Universal Windows 10 application with Visual Studio 2015 running on Windows 8.1 - something that we have enabled for the first time without requiring your to upgrade your OS, you will not be offered the XAML designer option - we will only allow you to edit XAML using the editor and IntelliSense. Similarly, you will not be allowed to test the application locally or using the Simulator (since it is a Windows 10 application and cannot run on your machine). Everything else should work fine, but for the best experience possible, consider upgrading to Windows 10.

If you are building a Windows 8.1 universal application, it should work just like before.

Unni Ravindranathan
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Windows 10 (fresh install + Developer mode) VS 2015 Update 1 Ultimate SDK Build 10586 By default no designer being available even via Shift-F7.

This expands the scope of the original problem, its not a VS edition based issue at all. Its a problem with the SDK support.

AS per Wener Henze

Swtich back to Build 10240. Fixed. Designer now available.

Werners workaround is confirmed and saved me lots of time. I don't have the rep to thank him, or comment on his post directly.

user2960136
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I installed fresh Windows 10 and Visual Studio Community 2015, and the designer failed to load (for MainPage.xaml etc). I had to:

  1. enable developer mode in system settings (update section) as suggested in info dialog
  2. (re)install Visual C++ redistributable for VS 2015

But I don't know which one exactly resolved the problem... Now the designer loads as expected. (I tried only C# universal app yet)

Vojtěch Štursa
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  • I wanted to comment also as this has plagued me. I had developer mode enabled and it didn't fix it. However, I went *back* into developer mode (which was already selected) and then a message appeared below it that it was updating features. – b.pell Oct 08 '16 at 17:19
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In case if you have installed fresh Windows 10 Build 10240 and downloaded and installed latest Visual Studio 2015, target version 10240 is not available in Project Properties -> Application -> Target version and designer is not working too.

I have got Target version 10240 selection available after I've installed additionally Windows 10 RTM SDK from following page. As discussed above, designer works fine if Target version 10240 is selected.

Max Go
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0

As an update to the answer of @Ivan because I just had to do with this issue recently.

Application

In my case I only had the option to change the Min Version from 10586 to 10240 but for the Target version I had no other choice than 10586. So solving this issue was not possible.

The solution was to install SDK Version 1506 (Version 10.0.26624.0) which can be found here https://developer.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/downloads/sdk-archive

After a restart of Visual Studio I was able to switch the Target version as well @Ivan mentioned and the XAML designer finally showed up. Heureka!

Thanks for the hint @Ivan.

Matthis Kohli
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you have to have the appropriate sdk installed on your machine, you can get it from the official site of Microsoft https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/sdk-archive

before that please remove the old sdk you installed on your pc, so that VS will use the new one.

then it'll work... i fixed mine in this way.

Helawe Behailu
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