VS2013 Build "Does not support previewing"

Question

Every time I try to build my solution in VS2013, nothing builds, no errors - But in the status bar it says: "This item does not support previewing"

I googled around a bit but have come up empty.

But if I right click on each project and select build it works fine.

Any ideas?

Perhaps this message is totally unrelated... Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Steps to reproduce on my machine:

1. Right Click any project in solution: select build
2. Status bar displays Build successful
3. Right click solution select build
4. Status bar displays : "This item does not support previewing"

Perhaps it isnt related, but it sure does appear to be.

Answer 1

I was able to fix this... Somehow nothing was selected to build in the solution configuration. I right clicked on the solution, went to properties and then selected COnfiguration Properties and clicked the Build box for all the projects...

I have no idea how they became unchecked, only thing I can think of is a co-worker was trolling me.....

Answer 2

I've had this problem (i.e. debug not starting, and no error message) with Visual Studio 2015 in the following two cases:

1. after loading a solution that had previously been built with Visual Studio 2010
2. and also after using the "save as" function in Visual Studio 2015 to update a solution that had been started with Visual Studio 2010 (using Save as updates the solution file and sets the active Visual Studio version to 14 - i.e. VS 2015).

In both cases, deleting the bin and obj directories under the startup project fixed the problem. It's also worth closing visual studio and making sure that there are no {yourprojectname}.vshost.exe processes still running - if there are then kill them before running visual studio again. On that note, if you have multiple versions of visual studio on your machine, you should also check that you don't have the same solution open in the other version of visual studio at the same time (I've done that one myself).

One of the comments here suggests disabling the "enable visual studio hosted process" option. Don't do that if you can at all avoid it: you'll lose lots of debugging functionality (particularly in the area of being able to edit code while your solution is running).

Hope that helps someone out there.

Answer 3

Solution for VS2015 "this item does not support previewing" vs2015 (Visual Studio 2015/2016)

Step 1. Go to Control Panel -> Programs and Features

Step 2. Uninstall all: Windows Software Development Kit - Windows 10.0.10586.15 (maybe you have diff ver)

Step 3. Download new latest Windows Software Development Kit https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=619296

Install & Create new project, Done!

Dclick on MainPage.xaml and you will see Loading designer...