Visual Studio 2020 - why can't I add second Windows Form to my Windows From project?

Question

Using this as a guideline (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/forms/how-to-add?view=netdesktop-6.0) I attempted to add a new form to my windows form project but am having some difficulty.

First I click on 'Add Windows Form:

but when I click on 'Windows Form' I get the message "no items found for search term". Any advice here? Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi @John Jarvinen ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Please first check if the form.cs item template is stored in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Windows Forms\1033\Form. And then try to repair VS from VS Installer > More > Repair.

Not sure if some files were corrupted when you were installing VS 2022. If repairing VS doesn’t work, I suggest you try to reinstall VS 2022.

Best Regards,
Tianyu

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Answer 2

Some additional info:

Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022 (64-bit) - Current Version
Version 17.1.6

I'm able to load old projects with multiple Forms, and create new projects with one Form.
No special addons, libraries, etc.

Just can't find a way to get 'Add Form' to work to a current project.

Answer 3

I was able to create my own Form programatically: Form prompt = new Form();

That leads to a couple of questions:

1. Why can't I use 'Add Form' to add a Form to my existing project?
2. Is there a way to create a designer view for the form I create at run time? Doesn't seem likely, does it, as it only exists after I run the program.

Answer 4

Thank you for your help.

The repair did not work. However, I completely uninstalled Visual Studio 2022 and reinstalled it, selecting only ".net desktop development". In previous installs, I had selected other options (such as Python, ASP, etc); don't really know if that had any effect.

But the new install (v17.1.6) now gives me the option to Add Form.

Again... thanks for your help.