Unable to start program in Visual Studio 2013/2012 for debugging

Question

I am getting an error message when trying to debug my project:

Error while trying to run project: Unable to start program 'C:\\path\\to\\project.exe'. Unrecognized error occoured in the Windows Web Services framework.

This error occurs in all build modes / platform configurations, but not when I launch without debugging (CTRL + F5). Then, it works just fine.

When I tried creating an empty Console Application Project, debugging worked without any problems.

What I tried so far:

• Repair VS 2013
• Reinstall VS 2013
• Install VS 2012 (same error)
• Disable Sophos AntiVirus and Firewall
• Disable Windows Firewall
• Deleting all shadow and temporary files (.suo and stuff)
• Manually reset all settings

I would appreciate any hints...

Answer 1

So I found the answer in another question (see this stackoverflow.com question ).

Using the command prompt, I ran

devenv.exe /ResetAddin 
devenv.exe /ResetSkipPkgs 
devenv.exe /ResetUserData
devenv.exe /ResetSettings

After full reinstall, all setings seemed to be cleared, but somehow this was not the case.