How to fix '“CheckAttributes” task could not be loaded'-error after installing Visual Studio 2013 Update 4

Question

After installing Update 4, I now find myself unable to build (or even clean) any solution. I keep getting:

Error 1 The \"CheckPathAttributes\" task coul

Answer 1

Well, here's "my solution".

First the horrific "prompt of death" (plus the same "licensing issue" annoyance) in this post:

What I've attempted (and result) based on info from the interwebs:

1. Close VS 2013 and rename the folder:
   C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ComponentModelCache
   
   Result: No effect/errors persist (VS will re-create that folder on startup)

2. Rerun the Visual Studio Update 4 installer and Repair
   
   Result: Successfully "fixed" whatever it was.
   This will take about an hour which is slower than when I originally installed the update so that was a clue, or rather, more like "well, I hope that means it found what it did wrong or forgot/missed out on" (and not, "oh crap, now I'm really screwing things up even more")

A quick summary of my environment so that hopefully will guide you to your solution:

• I did install Office Developer Tools Nov 2014 prior to the Update so in my case, that wasn't the issue (I did not remove/uninstall)

• I have Resharper, and I did not disable it, so this too doesn't seem related (some have pointed this out)

• I did update to Web Essentials 2013 for Update 4 after the initial Update (it will prompt you to after installing VS Update 4). I didn't do anything after the Repair (didn't remove/re-install/etc Web Essentials after the Repair).

• I have VS 2012 as well, just mentioning this though that was never affected in any way (and was my fallback while this issue was stopping me from using VS2013)

Hth...

Answer 2

Found the solution via this

TransformXml task could not be loaded from Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll

In my case, I had Visual Studio 2012 installed on an E: drive already, so I found a copy of Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks in

E:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web

So I copied that file, and Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform to here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web

and now all is well :)

Answer 3

Uninstalling "Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – November 2014 Update" helped me. Now all works as before.

Answer 4

If you have VS 2012 installed on your machine. Copy Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll and Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets from C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\web\ into C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web (the path for VS 2013). Restart visual studio.

Answer 5

Copying "Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" and "Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll" from "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web" to "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web" also works

Answer 6

My problem cleared thanks to the same TransformXml link and the suggestion to install Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4