EDIT: This is a windows error. The file is a microsoft file, part of their msi installer system. Something to do with missing windows installer components? We use the windows .net3.5 installer for all windows versions

Hi,

It is good to hear that installing .net3.5 allowed Visual Micro to be installed. This is a clearly documented requirement for Visual Micro and this normally affects win8 users which installs with 3.5 switched off. I didn't realize it is possible to install windows xp without .net3.5 the same solution is the same.

I understand that this is strange for you because you do not normally use windows. So if you install Atmel Studio for .Net4.0 and don't want to run any other windows programs you might well ask why you need .net3.5. Windows supports multiple versions of .net and you will see that many open source windows software examples are written for .net3.5 because it is the lowest common denominator. .net3.5 works on all versions of windows so makes sense to develop for 3.5 when possible.

Visual Micro is a number of programs that support Visual Studio 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 and Atmel Studio. The Visual Micro programs used for 2008 and .net3.5, for 2010 and Atmel Visual Micro uses .net4.0 and for 2012 and 2013 Visual Micro uses .net4.5. These are the .net versions that match each Ide.

The Visual Micro installer and some of the auxiliary programs use .net3.5 because it ensures everyone can install the product and also negates the need for multiple installation programs. Because Visual Micro is primarily a free product with a free forum and the product already consists of 5 separate compilations we try to avoid more compilations of various installers for different .net platforms.

As explained before the only control Visual Micro has over Atmel Studio intellisense is to alter one registry key which the Visual Micro installer normally does automatically. This does fail sometimes especially if Atmel Studio is open when the installer runs. 

If Atmel is open when the installer runs or has not previously shutdown properly this registry property is failing to be set correctly during installlation. The result is that intellisense does not appear for .ino files.

I provided you with a link to a windows .reg file that manually sets this property in the registry but usually recommend people close Atmel then run the visual micro uninstall/re-install which normally fixes the problem. Do you need a reminder of this link? Do you still have it?

The only other factor of intellisense is that Visual Micro ensures the correct paths to the Arduino sources are know to the Atmel intellisense engine. Visual Micro does this by updating the Atmel project include folders.

I am not sure if this information is helpful but please confirm what you mean by intellisense not working and please email an image of your ide as previously request and demonstrated to you to info [at] visualmicro.com

Thanks very much

Hi,

I am really sorry you have had these problems. I am and have been happy to investigate all I can say is that there are thousands of people using the software and so far you are the only person to report this.

1)

I have asked you email a screen shot a couple of times now of your ide with a sketch open. I even provided an example of how it should look but you have not provided this. I can only ask that you please do this it would be a great help.

2)
When you get the crash, please submit a windows crash dump to help us work out what is wrong. At least we will see more information. I can then ask Atmel or whoever to look into it.

3)
It would help if you also zipped and emailed your sketch folder so that I can see the settings you have or that were deduced from your configuration.

EDIT: 3) Please confirm if you have altered any of the Atmel Studio default settings such as "text editor font" etc.

Summary

The email address in case you missed it earlier is info [at] visualmicro.com

Once again sorry you have this impression of the software, if this is what happens to many users then I would not have time to produce the software. 

So please be assured that if you do provide the requested diagnostics information we will find the problem. Please don't uninstall or re-install anything until we have looked at the information you provide.

Thanks very much

EDIT: ps: If you are using Arduino 1.5.x then there are some slight library changes to library search paths in Atmel Studio in the 1401.20 beta here.