Web Service Enhancements 3 (WSE 3) is not officially supported since Visual Studio 2008. The reason is that Microsoft wants you to migrate your code to WCF. See below to enable Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 in VS2012, VS2010 and VS2008.
1. Download and install Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 for Microsoft .NET. Make sure you have all the files after installing WSE v3.0. In Window 7 the location is “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft WSE\v3.0\Tools”. Note: Close Visual Studio before installing.
WSE 3.0 DLL on Window 7
WSE 3.0 DLL on Window XP
2. Go to the folder %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\AddIns (notice that “Application Data” is hardcoded, which shouldn’t because Windows XP localizes that folder). If the folder is not there close Visual Studio and create the folder as show below.
Examples:
– Windows XP: “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\AddIns”
– Windows Vista / Windows 7: “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\AddIns”. ( This is a hidden folder. Copy paste the UNC path to Windows Explorer.)
3. In the folder in step 2 you will find WSESettingsVS3.AddIn file. Backup WSESettingsVS3.AddIn before modifying. If its not there then create one with the file name WSESettingsVS3.Addin and type the content from the picture shown in step 4.
4. You’ll find two sections. Note that the version is 8.0. Copy and paste these two sections and change the version of the new sections to 9.0 (if using Visual Studio 2008) or 10.0 (if using Visual Studio 2010) or 11.0 (if using Visual Studio 2012). Save the file.
VS2012 WSE3.0 WSESettingsVS3.AddIn file
5. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE (if using VS2012) or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE (if using VS2008) or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE (if using VS 2010) and open the devenv.exe.config file. Backup the devenv.exe.config file and add the following snippet just above the closing tag inside the file. This helps Visual Studio to generate web service proxy classes using WSE.
Visual Studio Devenv.exe. config file
<system.web>
<webServices>
<soapExtensionImporterTypes>
<add type="Microsoft.Web.Services3.Description.WseExtensionImporter,
Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0,
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
</soapExtensionImporterTypes>
</webServices>
</system.web>
7. Close all the instances of Visual Studio and start the application again.
8. Open your project in Visual Studio and right click on project to see the WSE Setting 3.0 option. Now you could configure WSE setting in Visual Studio. Good luck.
WSE Setting 3.0 on VS2012 menu
WSE Setting 3.0 under VS2010 project
Reference:
Default .AddIn file locations for Visual Studio add-ins
How to use WSE 3 in Visual Studio 2008
Migrating WSE 3.0 Web Services to WCF
WSE 3.0 Setting Tool For Visual Studio 2008
How to use WSE 3 in Visual Studio 2008
How to use WSE 3 in Visual Studio 2010
Diganta Kumar is an experienced Technical Program Manager with a passion for technology. He has architected and developed software for over a decade for a broad range of industries. Diganta is a founder of two online IT businesses. He likes to help, mentor, and manage software development teams to improve and produce great software. He currently works as a Principal Program Manager for Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, he was with AWS for five years, where he managed large cross-functional programs on a global scale.
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Thank you – works like a charm! One thing to note is that if you copy/paste the code above, you may need to manually enter the double quotes found in the add element to avoid syntax errors.
Thanks, unfortunately I did not see and had to figure it out myself. Lesson learned: When encountering errors read the comments. Thanks!
Bingo, thanks
Thank you! Works great. And thanks for the heads up on the double quotes too.
Thank you much. This was really helpful.
I would like to add this, please make sure you select Visual Studio Developer optin when you install WSE3.0 extension. Also you need to enable WES3.0 from project. In visual studion, right click on the project and select WSE Settings 3.0 and enable the option from popup dialog.
Hope this might helpe if some needs to know how to enable the extension after the above setup.
Thanks again.
I use vs2010 and win 7 ultimate. After instal wse3.0, i can’t find this folder : C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\Addins
Please help me!
I have update my article to VS2010 and Win 7 ultimate. Please revisit my article.
Wonderful article and saved me tonnes of time from installing vs 2005.
i have a problem.
i do everthing and i then i use in my code:
using Microsoft.Web.Services3.Design;
(its an example)
but then when i Start Debuggin its appears:
The type or namespace name ‘Web’ does not exist in the namespace ‘Microsoft’ (are you missing an assembly reference?)
and i need to addit again but every time i start debugging the reference is missing. u_u
can you help me please?
it works! thanks.
But only in framework 3.5 and below.
its the a way to make it work with framework 4.0?
it works references in 4.0 but then i compile it and it doesnt find the references anymore:
The referenced assembly “Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, processorArchitecture=MSIL” could not be resolved because it has a dependency on “System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a” which is not in the currently targeted framework “.NETFramework,Version=v4.0,Profile=Client”. Please remove references to assemblies not in the targeted framework or consider retargeting your project.
thanks in advance!
Thanks..it helped a lot..
Thank you very much for this information. Your help has been great!
Did the steps exactly as given but WSE Settings 3.0 option is still not comming when I right click on project. Trying with VS2010 and Windows Server 2008R2.
After installation of WSE 3.0 Addin file was not there so created manually under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\AddIns
It worked for the first time but after restarting my machine this option is not showing on the right click menu of the project. First time worked application is compiling successfully but if I tried to add reference of the dll in another project even that way is also not working. What could be the reason?
I don’t have this issue. May be try it again.
[…] Visual Studio 2005. If you need the same addin to be added to VS 2008 or 2010 please follow this link. We use this link the create the proxy class for the web service that we are going to use in our […]
great work
Thank you so much. This is just what I need!.
Thank you so much!. This is just what I need it! Keep doing a great job!
Hey thanks !!! that worked like charm
It’s a relief to find sonemoe who can explain things so well
Solution also works when trying to install Visual Studio 2005 and WSE 3.0 on Windows 7, although WSE 3 appears fine it does not build the wse class in the imported web service, devenv.exe.config does not get set up correctly by the WSE 3 installer, manually adding in the fix above get it working
WSE3…
This is useful when trying to get WSE3 running in Visual Studio 2010: …
Very Very nice. I got Solution…..
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Thanks for this article. I’ve got finally added WSE in Visual Studio 2008.
I appreciated it !!
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Great article,Thanks very much 🙂
ive tryed those steps in windows 7 ultimate 64bit but i get problem when i open vs2010
even thou it worked fine with windows xp
Try uninstalling WSE 3.0 and follow the steps for Windows 7 this article http://digantakumar.com/2010/06/04/wse-3-in-visual-studio-2008-and-2010
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Diganta – Could you update this excellent post to include “Visual Studio Community 2013”.
Has anyone been able to replicate this on VS 2013 or 2015?
Hi sir,
have you had any success with VS2015 in win10?
Regards
This could work on VS2012 Express?
I have not tried on VS2012 Express, but in theory, it should work.
hello sir,
is it possible to make it work with visual studio 2015?
I have not tried on Visual Studio 2015, but in theory, it should work. Give it a try and let us know.
Hello Sir,
I just couldn’t enable WSA with VS 2015. WSE Menu option on the newly created projects just don’t appear.
Excellent and comprehensive configuration article.
Hi, how do you incorporate these to VS2015?
hello sir,
is it possible to operate with this in visual studio 2015? I couldn’t make it work…
Now Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 is available on Nuget Gallery as an indipendent library (.dll). Worked for me on VS2015 https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Web.Services3/
Than you sir, I’ll check it out.
Regards,E.
Hi Sir.
I just didn’t manage to establish the Proxy with wse class included, even after importing wse dll through nuget manager. Did anyone manage to get the thing worked?
Regards,
Erik.
You need first to configure WSE for use it, but the WSE Menu option doesn’t appear because a simple external library (Microsoft.Web.Services3.dll) cannot add a menu option in Visual Studio (only an Visual Studio extension can do it). But don’t worry, there is a simple solution : write directly into web.config the configuration that you need (that the WSE Menu automatically would wrote for you). But you need some configuration examples, i suppose!
Download the source code of those projects and read the web.config
– An old .NET 2.0 project that use WSE with MTOM protocol (path /WebService/web.config)
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/12551/Sending-Files-in-Chunks-with-MTOM-Web-Services-and
– A project with WCF and WSE (path /StandardWS/web.config)
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/632101/Mtom-Encoding-in-WCF
It worked for me!
And be careful to set the value of the attribute “serverMode” of MTOM item inside web.config, if you want to use the MTOM protocol
In the first example that i have suggested, his value is “Always”, in the second is “optional”. Try both and find what work for you…
Hi Sir.
Thank you very much for your input and all the invested effort for helping me.
But I dont’t know anymore what is wrong. Considering links that you have suggested, I have tried changing web.config file from the project and also devenv.xml file of the VS. It doesn’t make any difference – my proxies are still generated without WSE partial classes. It became very frustrating now…
Regards, Erik D.
Thank you sir for all the effort helping me. But it just wont work. I have manually set the config as it should be, but the WSE method just wont appear in the generated Proxy. It’s just frustrating… VS wont grab assemblly…
Your proxies should be generating WSE partial classes. Maybe uninstall WSE and try again. Goodluck!
[…] Enable Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 in Visual … – Web Service Enhancements 3 (WSE 3) is not officially supported since Visual Studio 2008. The reason is that Microsoft wants you to migrate your code to WCF. See … […]
[…] Enable Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 in Visual … – See below to enable Web Services Enhancements (WSE) … Posted in ASP.NET, … Follow “Diganta Kumar’s Blog … […]
[…] SOAP with the correct security headers but this was depreciated post VS2005. It was possible to hack the add-in into newer Visual Studio versions but this doesn’t work in VS2015 and to be honest it is time to move […]
Hello,
I cannot find the devenv.exe.config file in the following location:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE
I’m using VS 2012 Express
Never mind! It’s called WDExpress.exe.config on my version
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Confirmed to be working on Visual studio 2013 (12.0) also. Main point which I missed while configuration was following:
Add below in WSESettingsVS3.AddIn file:
Microsoft Visual Studio Macros
12.0
Microsoft Visual Studio
12.0
and perform the remaining step as mentioned in article and do the following:
1. Go to Tools – Options – Environment – Add-in Security where Visual Studio
2. Add path [Windows Installation Drive]:\ProgramData\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\Addins (Window 10) to Add-in
3. Restart the Visual studio 2013 and you are good to go