How to enable nugets package restore in Visual Studio 2015?

Solution 1:

I had the same problem as you and the way I solved it was to delete the packages folder from my solution and also bin and obj folders from every project in the solution and give it a rebuild.

Solution 2:

As it turns out, the real solution is to migrate to Automatic Package Restore. We experienced issues with NuGet after upgrading to VS 2015 after working in 2013 for a while. Turns out the old way of doing NuGet completely hoses the new way of doing it.

The solution is simple, though tedious. Apparently the NuGet.targets file signals VS to use the old NuGet way of doing things, and it's absence means that you are now using "Automatic Package Restore". You can migrate to Automatic Package Restore by following these steps:

1. Delete .nuget/NuGet.exe
2. Delete .nuget/NuGet.targets
3. For each project:
   1. Unload the project
   2. Right click -> Edit the project
   3. Delete all references to the NuGet.targets file, i.e. the following:

<RestorePackages>true</RestorePackages>  
...
<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" />  
...
<Target Name="EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports" BeforeTargets="PrepareForBuild">  
    <PropertyGroup>
        <ErrorText>This project references NuGet package(s) that are missing on this computer. Enable NuGet Package Restore to download them.  For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=322105. The missing file is {0}.</ErrorText>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <Error Condition="!Exists('$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\NuGet.targets')" Text="$([System.String]::Format('$(ErrorText)', '$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\NuGet.targets'))" />
</Target>

There is also a powershell script that will perform the migration for you, if you are feeling bold. You can find it on github.

Solution 3:

For others this option is available in the Nuget settings section in Visual Studio Options