setup requires the computer to be restarted before visual studio can run

Question

setup requires the computer to be restarted before visual studio can run

brunce 0

After installing the extension and running visual studio, the message 'setup requires the computer to be restarted before visual studio can run' pops up. What is the reason for this? How to solve it? Thank you.

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Answer 1

Tianyu Sun-MSFT 34,436 Microsoft External Staff

Hello @brunce ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Does rebooting your machine and going to VS Installer > restarting Visual Studio solve this issue?

What is the reason for this?

See this similar thread: VS Installer requires a computer restart after every VS update. Sometimes files which need to be used when installing components/extensions or updating VS, may be locked as other applications/processes are using them. In this situation, a restart will be needed.

How to solve it?

Normally, following the message to reboot machine should solve it. If it doesn’t work, try to open VS Installer > Restart VS or click More > Repair to repair Visual Studio.

Feel free to let us know the result.

Best Regards,

Tianyu

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brunce 0 Reputation points

2023-05-06T02:29:32.85+00:00

Thank you very much for your timely reply.

Sorry, my problem may not be described clearly. As you said, restarting the computer can solve this problem,

But my confusion is that I only need to restart my computer after installing an extension (developed by myself), which feels very detrimental to the user experience. How can this problem be avoided?

Is there a problem with the settings of my Extension? I haven't found the cause of the problem yet.

Thanks in advance.
Tianyu Sun-MSFT 34,436 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-05-08T09:09:16.3133333+00:00

Hi @brunce ,

Thanks for your reply.

It’s possible, you need to first confirm that this issue isn’t caused by VS or by other applications/OS. You can try to install a different random extension from Extensions > Manage Extensions > Online and check if the message still pops up. Try to install your extension into VS of another clean machine, if possible, to verify that OS/system files/other applications don’t affect the installation.

If installing a random extension doesn’t make the message pop up, and the message pops up when you install your extension into VS of another clean machine, then there should be something wrong with your extension. Since the extension is customized, you may double check the extension settings, the assemblies, packages, or files that you are using.

You can try to debug your extension and install it to an experimental started Visual Studio to verify it.

Regards,

Tianyu
brunce 0 Reputation points

2023-05-12T02:37:27.0766667+00:00

Thank you for your prompt reply!

What I want to know is, why does starting VS require restarting the machine? Did you modify some parameters in VS's registry?
Tianyu Sun-MSFT 34,436 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-05-17T08:59:47.3366667+00:00

Hi @brunce ,

Starting VS doesn’t require restarting the machine, except for some special situations. For example, the installation of the extension doesn’t finish. One of the causes is that some needed files may be locked as they are running outside of VS or being used by other processes. This blocks the installation of the extension and prevents VS from running. In this situation, VS may inform you to reboot the machine as rebooting the machine will kill the processes, release the locked files, and make the installation successful. If you are on a clean machine and/or have restarted your machine, then this issue may not appear.

Did you modify some parameters in VS’s registry?

I’m not sure what you mean, in the latest version of VS 2022, installing extensions into VS still doesn’t require restarting machine, except for some special situations which I have described above.

Sincerely,

Tianyu
Ralf Flechsig 0 Reputation points

2023-12-11T19:12:38.2766667+00:00

I've just updated the VS Community 2022 via VS Installer and also received the message "to restart the PC".

I think, the question is: Are there any plans to make VS and VS extensions a tool which can be "smoothly" updated like any other professional tool (which do not require OS restart after update)?

Modern tools even do "silent update" (see Google tools) after application is being closed and never "ask for a PC restart".

Why is VS so "hacked into Windows/Operating System", that it requires a "Operating System Restart" to function properly "as a tool"?

If there are DLLs which need to be replaced/updated and there are applications still blocking these DLLs, why installer simply can't tell "which apps"? So user has a chance to close "these apps" and use "updated VS" without the need to perform a "whole OS restart"?
Tianyu Sun-MSFT 34,436 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-12-13T10:02:38.2233333+00:00

Hi @Ralf Flechsig ,

Matt shared some clarifications here: Why reboot after every update?, please kindly check it.

In most cases we have investigated, the VS Redist was updating, and any number of programs were actively using it at the time. (Notepad, Office, Teams, OneDrive, and Video Drivers are examples in just one case we looked at.) We are investigating how to improve the experience here end-to-end. Unfortunately, this is more challenging than for a simple single app, as Visual Studio represents a large collection of various products that could be in use at the time it is updated.

For your specific issue, please kindly submit a feedback ticket on our Developer Community and attach the corresponding VS logs files by using the collect.exe tools downloaded from here for further investigation.

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setup requires the computer to be restarted before visual studio can run

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