For many, yes. VS2012 Express seems to have broken on Win7 after an update. VS20112 Professional may or may not be broken.

See the link here; you can not create new projects or open existing ones.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2781514

This is really unfortunate; the patch at the above link didn't work for me (maybe it will for you?).

The only option is to wait for Microsoft to fix this (there is a VS2013 on the horizon, so they might decide not to fix it?) or downgrade to VS2010 Express or (preferred) VS2008 Express with SP1. I recommend VS2008 for all future projects; its stable and starts quickly.

VS2010 Express:
http://download.microsoft.com/.....press1.iso

VS2008 Express:
http://download.microsoft.com/.....397868.iso

VS2008 Express SP1:
http://download.microsoft.com/.....504728.iso

Note: both VS2010 and 2008 Express are not compatible with VS2012 project files, so you still can't open your old projects. However, VS2012 Professional does not have this issue (for me, I can't guarantee it for anyone else) so you might want to consider purchasing that - again, I can't guarantee this will fix your issues.