I just installed the latest Azure SDK and before that, I installed the latest Gadgeteer SDK (Preview from GHI). Since then Visual Studio 2013 hangs during the project-creation phase. It seems to be an issue with universal apps as well (NOT IN VS 2015!):
@ Jason - The Syncfusion Enterprise suite. Windows installed some updates and restarted the machine. I thought the re-start happened during the Syncfusion install, which was not the case. This left my VS in an messed-up state. After un-installing and re-installing the Syncfusion Enterprise suite, everything worked just fine.