Visio 2013 startup problem "Please wait while Windows configures Microsoft Visio..."

I am running Win 7/Office 2010 and I've installed Visio Pro 2013 on 3 machines (manually and deployments). Once install is complete, when you open Visio Pro the windows configures each time.

I've tried the following 2 steps and no success.

reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Visio\Options /v NoReReg /t REG_DWORD /d 1

To manually fix this issue, run 'regedit' and manually change the value of [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.vsd] to Visio.Drawing.11 (if using the Visio client) or VisioViewer.Viewer (if using the Visio Viewer).

Hi,

1.Please try to click Start> click Run>type the following command> press Enter:

secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose

See if the problem has been solved.

2.If this problem persists, try to start Visio in safe mode, if the problem does not occur in the safe mode, this issue might be related to some third-party add-ins in the Office program, you can try to disable them. Normally, you could do the following to disable the conflict add-ins in your Office program.

3.if the problem still persists you can visit KB2528748, download Fix it 50780 and use it to fix the problem. If all fails, well, uninstalling Office completely and re-installing it.

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support

Thanks for the assistance.

I tried the suggestions and still having same issue of Visio wanting to configure each time you open the program. It opens in safe mode, but still configures.

There were add in from Acrobat that I removed acrobat. No change. I've also run a repair on Visio. Behavior is the same for Visio Std or Visio Pro 2013 over Office Pro Plus 2010.

I'll keep plugging away, but if you or anyone else experience behavior and has a fix, let me know. Thanks

Hi,

Did you have installed the previous Visio version in the same PC

If you installed Visio 2007, try uninstalling this update: KB2767916 "Update for Microsoft Office 2007 suites".

If you did want to see the error message, here is a workaround, please try to run Visio.exe /noreg.

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support

Thanks for the assistance.

I was able to install Visio Pro 2013 and open up without configuring on 1 of the machines. I tried 2 things one of which may have worked.

Your suggestion above on the update allowed me to remove another update KB259981 Visio Viewer Update [Describes a vulnerability in Microsoft Visio 2010 Viewer could allow remote code execution.].

I also installed Project Std 2013. Project Std installed and opened up without the configuration start up issue. Installing Project Std also included the additional install of the Office 2013 Language Preference program. I suspect this had an impact on the installation of Visio. I'm wondering if during the install start up issue that the program was configuring the language preference for Visio.

I made both changes at the same time so I can't confirm which worked, just glad that issue resolved.

• Marked as answer by Tony Chen CHNMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Wednesday, January 08, 2014 6:50 AM

Visio 2013 on 2012 r2 terminal server had the same issue. This issue seems to have been in every version of visio while the fix varies on version.

So the problem seems to come with visio wanting to register the file associations on launch, this causes a msi repair. Unfortunately the msi repair does not fix the key, nor does uninstalling and re-installing update the key to the correct value.  Why? Because hkey_classes_root is a combination of the users file associations hkey_current_user\software\Classes\ (this is where the bad key exists)

and

hkey_local_machine\Software\Classes

You will notice the key .vsdx exists in both locations, the HKLM value for me was actually correct.  The problem is that hkey_classes_root is actually the net result of hkey_local_machine\Software\Classes and hkey_current_user\software\Classes\, where hkey_current_user\software\Classes\ is always the winning key.

So the visio on launch detects that the file association for .vsdx is incorrect and tries to correct it with a repair, but the repair does not update they key for hkey_current_user\software\Classes\.vsdx that is actually causing the issue. The net result is that visio repairs on every launch but never fixes the problem.

Anyways that's the problem and the reason behind it, the fix is below.

I ran visio.exe with the switch /noreg "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\visio.exe /noreg"

and it started without re-installing.

I found a heap of people with this issue, one of the fixes for older versions of visio was to update hkey_classes_root\.vsd (default with  Visio.Drawing.15)

Visio 2013 saves files as .vsdx, this led me to hkey_classes_root\.vsdx

I noticed this set to the wrong value of "vsdx_auto_file"

Using preferential policy because we needed a solution for new users, I set it to update this key to the correct value.  I verified the key does not actually exist in the default user profile, so you cant fix it there.  The only way I found to fix it long term for all users was to use a policy to update the key for all users when they log on.

"hkcu\software\Classes\.vsdx" the default value should be "Visio.Drawing.15"

Here is a copy of the preferential user policy, if you are running an enterprise with AD and Group policy you can use the following to update the keys.

So the log of the short is verify the following keys are set to "Visio.Drawing.15"

Open Regedit.exe

Update these keys HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.vsd and  HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.vsdx to the following

The (default) value should be "Visio.Drawing.15"

or run visio.exe with the /noreg switch, the only problem with this method is that running a shortcut with the switch does not solve the issue for people that double click a .vsd or .vsdx file directly.

Good luck! I lost a day and a half on this, it seems the problem dates back to nearly every version of visio.  I would be good if MS developed a long term fix.

 

Finally solved this annoying problem. Thanks a lot!