VS2008 Crashing on Project Load

Question

I am unable to load any existing projects after starting VS2008. When I try to open an existing project VS2008 will crash. It looks like it is crashing when trying to load a floating window in VS but I cant tell which one.

When I launch the debugger on the crashed instance I get the following message which is not very useful.

Unhandled exception at 0x00740078 in devenv.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x7e429ed9.

I have previously had SP1 installed but have now removed this. I also have used Resharper 4.0 but have uninstalled this as well and am still getting the problem.

Does anyone have tips on how to solve VS2008 crashing problems? I really dont want to have to do a reinstall of the product.

As a work around I have found that if I create a new class library project it will fail because of a write to protected memory error. If i try and create another new class library project it will work and then I can load an existing project.

Answer 1

Try renaming the:
projectName.csproj.user file
solutionName.suo file
solutionName.ncb file
... and see if the project opens.

Answer 2

You can also try running devenv.exe with the /ResetSettings argument (which will reset any custom settings you have) or with the /SafeMode flag. /SafeMode won't help you fix your problem but it will at least narrow down the issue to the things that are different between safe and regular mode.