Building error: cannot open Skeleton.aex

[Morta Plyciute]

Hello, I am a very junior programmer so probably my mistake is very dumb, but I could not find and fix it.

I have: Adobe AE CC 2017 Win SDK, Visual Studio 2015.

Problem: when I try to build Skeleton project (or Build All solution) I get this error:

Is my Visual Studio failing to work with .aex files? Or it can be that I need to set some paths differently (I haven't changed anything in SDK solution)?

[JamesWhiffin555]

I too am a beginner, though I believe visual studio is attempting to open the .aex file. Visual studio needs to be told to open the after effects application to debug the plugin. That's in project preferences somewhere (sorry I'm currently on mac).

[Zac Lam · Accepted solution]

This error can occur if Visual Studio isn't run as an administrator, and can't create the output file in a folder with protected write access.

Here's some helpful info from the SDK Guide PDF, page 43 on "Building the Sample Projects":

When compiling the plug-ins, if you see a link error such as:

“Cannot open file “[MediaCore plug-ins path]\plugin.prm”, make sure to launch Visual Studio in administrator mode. In your Visual Studio installation, right-click devenv.exe, Properties > Compatibility > Privilege Level, click “Run this program as an administrator”.