Windows Azure project errors The CctSharedPackage did not load correctly

Seeing as Windows Azure SDK 2.1 was already installed, i redownloaded the installer and went to run it to ask it to reinstall or repair the installation. Seeing as the install is the Web Platform Installer, it provided none of those options. At this point I decided that I must uninstall the SDK to be able to reinstall it from Add/Remove Programs.

When I went to Add/Remove Programs I saw that there were installations there for Windows Azure Libraries for .NET - v1.8 and Windows Azure Authoring Tools - v1.8. I removed both of these installations and then the project was able to load successfully.

I don't have the 1.8 SDK installed. I believe it was a windows update relating to .Net 3.5 which might have broken my installation. To Fix all I did was open up Explorer in Windows 8 and select the 'Uninstall or Change a program' option from the ribbon.

Search for Azure and when there was an option to 'repair' I repaired the program. FIXED

I ran into similar problem (The 'CctSharedPackage' did not load correctly). In my case starting Visual Studio with Run as administrator solved the issue.

this seems to be a problem with the installer. Re-installing is an option, but you can fix it with a simple command line by registering your assemblies in the GAC.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Azure Tools\Visual Studio 11.0>gacutil /i .\Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics.dll