Unable to Activate Windows Store App

Gerry picture Gerry · Nov 15, 2012 · Viewed 40.4k times · Source

I installed a retail version of Windows 8 Pro. I downloaded and installed Visual Studio Express 2012. I asked for and received a developers certificate. Then I tried to create a hello world app.

From there I get a "Unable to Activate Windows Store App" message box when I try to debug the app. Most commentary on the web says delete build directories. This didn't work for me

Does anyone have a solution for how to fix this and debug my app?

Answer

Jennifer Marsman - MSFT picture Jennifer Marsman - MSFT · Nov 15, 2012

This happened to me once too, but the deleting build directories advice fixed it. I assume that this is only one project since it's a Hello World app; otherwise I would ask if you deleted build directories from all projects in your solution.

You can also try running "Clean Solution" from the BUILD menu in Visual Studio.

I'm sorry...it's horrible if this is happening on a clean install as you describe.