Visual Studio 2022 projects failing to load after update to 17.5.4

I recently updated visual studio 2022 to version 17.5.4 from 17.4.5. after doing so all project fail to load. I have tried repairing the install, I have also uninstalled and reinstalled the newest version as well as the previous version, still no luck. Any help is appreciated.

error  : SDK Resolver Failure: "The SDK resolver "Microsoft.DotNet.MSBuildSdkResolver" failed while attempting to resolve the SDK "Microsoft.NET.Sdk". Exception: "System.FormatException: Invalid numeric identifier: '300_bak'.
   at Microsoft.Deployment.DotNet.Releases.ReleaseVersion.TryParseCoreVersionPart(String input, Boolean throwOnFailure, Int32& value)
   at Microsoft.Deployment.DotNet.Releases.ReleaseVersion.TryParse(String input, Boolean throwOnFailure, ReleaseVersion& version)
   at Microsoft.Deployment.DotNet.Releases.ReleaseVersion.Parse(String input)
   at Microsoft.Deployment.DotNet.Releases.ReleaseVersion..ctor(String version)
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadManifestReader.SdkFeatureBand..ctor(String version)
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadManifestReader.SdkDirectoryWorkloadManifestProvider.<>c.<FallbackForMissingManifest>b__9_1(String featureBand)
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereSelectArrayIterator`2.MoveNext()
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereEnumerableIterator`1.MoveNext()
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.Max[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadManifestReader.SdkDirectoryWorkloadManifestProvider.FallbackForMissingManifest(String manifestId)
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadManifestReader.SdkDirectoryWorkloadManifestProvider.GetManifestDirectories()
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadManifestReader.SdkDirectoryWorkloadManifestProvider.<GetManifests>d__7.MoveNext()
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadManifestReader.WorkloadResolver.LoadManifestsFromProvider(IWorkloadManifestProvider manifestProvider)
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadManifestReader.WorkloadResolver.Create(IWorkloadManifestProvider manifestProvider, String dotnetRootPath, String sdkVersion, String userProfileDir)
   at Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WorkloadMSBuildSdkResolver.CachingWorkloadResolver.Resolve(String sdkReferenceName, String dotnetRootPath, String sdkVersion, String userProfileDir)
   at Microsoft.DotNet.MSBuildSdkResolver.DotNetMSBuildSdkResolver.Resolve(SdkReference sdkReference, SdkResolverContext context, SdkResultFactory factory)
   at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.SdkResolution.SdkResolverService.TryResolveSdkUsingSpecifiedResolvers(IList`1 resolvers, Int32 submissionId, SdkReference sdk, LoggingContext loggingContext, ElementLocation sdkReferenceLocation, String solutionPath, String projectPath, Boolean interactive, Boolean isRunningInVisualStudio, SdkResult& sdkResult)

I uninstalled Visual Studio 17.5.4, installed version 17.2.10 from here (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2022/release-history), verified that everything worked as before, project was now able to be created and loaded, unfortunately some of the templates I needed (i.e. MAUI) were not installed, so I updated to version 17.2.15, that did not install the MAUI templates, but visual studio was still able to load projects. I tried installing visual studio 17.5.4 (side by side) and it still will not load projects. I launched version 17.2.15 and projects load fine. Uninstalled version 17.5.4, then reinstalled version 17.4.4, the world is right again. I am coming to the conclusion that there is something wrong with visual studio on my laptop for version 17.5.4

I've had the same issue with every update I install. I am also working in MAUI so I have been jumping on the updates. For me it is always an environment variables issue and throws the SDK error. Every update switches my dotnet paths and that is what has been causing the projects to fail to load in my solutions.

TLDR: Go to your environment variables and take a look at PATH in System Variables (not to be confused with User Variables). C:\Program Files\dotnet\ needs to be before C:\Program Files (x86)\dotnet\.

For anyone new to digging around your environment variables here is this guide to get you to PATH.

Once you're there find C:\Program Files\dotnet\ and move it up until it is over C:\Program Files (x86)\dotnet\.

Further reading about the x86 issue here