[c#] No templates in Visual Studio 2017

After a Visual Studio 2017 (RC) installation from scratch, I can't find a standard list of templates. I'm specifically interested in the Console Application (C#) template and the Windows Form (C#) template. I'm pretty sure I'm missing one of the Individual Components. I'm not sure which one is supposed to be installed and I don't want to install all of them.

Please see my list with components installed.

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This question is related to c# visual-studio-templates visual-studio-2017

The answer is


I found the path and wrote it in the options enter image description here


In my case, I had all of the required features, but I had installed the Team Explorer version (accidentally used the wrong installer) before installing Professional.

When running the Team Explorer version, only the Blank Solution option was available.

The Team Explorer EXE was located in: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\TeamExplorer\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"

Once I launched the correct EXE, Visual Studio started working as expected.

The Professional EXE was located in: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"


If you have installed .NET desktop development and still you can't see the templates, then VS is probably getting the templates from your custom templates folder and not installed.

To fix that, copy the installed templates folder to custom.

This is your "installed" folder

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates

This is your "custom" folder

C:\Users[your username]\Documents\Visual Studio\2017\Templates\ProjectTemplates

Typically this happens when you are at the office and you are running VS as an administrator and visual studio is confused how to merge both of them and if you notice they don't have the same folder structure and folder names.. One is CSHARP and the other C#....

I didn't have the same problem when I installed VS 2017 community edition at home though. This happened when I installed visual studio 2017 "enterprise" edition.


In my case, I had all of the required features, but I had installed the Team Explorer version (accidentally used the wrong installer) before installing Professional.

When running the Team Explorer version, only the Blank Solution option was available.

The Team Explorer EXE was located in: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\TeamExplorer\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"

Once I launched the correct EXE, Visual Studio started working as expected.

The Professional EXE was located in: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"


This solved my issue, and the reason was I had enterprise edition previously installed and then uninstalled and installed the professional edition. Team Explorer was not modified later when I moved to professional from enterprise edition.


NOTE: this topic is about installation issues with MS project templates.

I came here via a search in Google, I was looking for a missing Template option in Visual Studio 2017 File menu: in VS-2015, it was Export to Template and I used it to add my own standard Project Items.

Meanwhile, I found an answer.. my issue was not related to default templates and it does not need install things. The option Export to Template has been moved to the VS-2017 Project menu !


My personal experience was that I had installed the Team Foundation Server client for 2017 first (was using it as a Proof of Concept for our QA team, while I was still using VS2015), then followed it up with Installing Visual Studio 2017 later to begin development.

What I ended up with on my Start Menu was a Visual Studio 2017 and a Visual Studio 2017 (2). The Visual Studio 2017 (2) had all the templates I was missing. Following the steps found in the First answer to this question (which were clear and easy to follow) did not fix my issue. I had thought that launching the client would upgrade to the Development Client, but it did not. I renamed it to Visual Studio Professional, and now have everything I need. Not sure if this happens to anyone else, but it was what happened to me, so I hope this helps someone.


I had to reinstall .NET desktop development (throught Workload tab), even button was showing: Modify

After that Visual C# selection appeared :) (And now i can use Console APP Template)


My C++ templates were there all along, it was my C# ones that were missing.

Similar to CSharpie, after trying many modify/re-installs, oddly the following finally worked for me :
- run the installer, but un-select 'Desktop development with C++'.
- allow installer to complete
- run the installer again, and select 'Desktop development with C++'.
- allow installer to complete