Visual Studio 2015 + Cordova Update 1 can lead to broken Cordova projects

Published on 25 August 2015 Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

The dev tools team recently released Update 1 for the Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova. However, this update can cause Visual Studio (VS) to hang and/or other issues with Cordova projects. This is a known issue—one that impacts early adopters the most, because it requires two conditions:

The update itself
The original Windows 10 SDK

There was an issue with the SDK, which was re-released a few days later with a fix. But anyone with the original bits will still encounter the problem—this includes users who installed VS 2015 from an ISO without internet access (even if you use the ISO while connected, it may still pull the outdated version).

Workaround

If you haven’t installed the tools yet

The fix is simple: open the registry and verify the presence of these keys:

For x86: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\Setup\VS\JSLS_MSI\Version
For x64: HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\Setup\VS\JSLS_MSI\Version

If you do not have these registry keys, you’re at risk and should follow these steps:

⚠️ Ensure you have an internet connection BEFORE starting.

Go to Programs and Features, select Visual Studio 2015, and click Change.
In the Visual Studio setup, click Modify.
Deselect the feature "Tools for Universal Windows App Development".
Re-select it and click Update (forcing VS to fetch and install the latest SDK bits, resolving the issue).

If you’ve already uninstalled the tools

Reinstall Tools for Universal Windows App Development.
OR, follow these steps to reinstall the JavaScript project system and language service:
1. Download the Visual Studio installer for your edition (e.g., vs_community.exe).
2. Open a command prompt and run:
```
vs_community.exe /modify /installselectableitems JavaScript_Hidden /passive
```
3. Navigate to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE
4. Execute these commands:
```
devenv /updateconfiguration
devenv /clearcache
```

(Thanks to Paul Chapman on the forums for this solution.)