I have a Visual Studio 2010 .NET program that always has an icon in the Windows 7 taskbar. When the program is intially installed on a computer, I go to the notification settings screen, find my program, and set it to "Show icon and notifications". This works well, and "sticks" even if the computer is rebooted.
However, when I publish an upgrade to the program (this is done by incrementing the Assembly Version number), this setting reverts back to "Only show notifications". I realize technically that this is a "new" executable, which is probably causing this behaviour, but I find this highly annoying.
Is there any way to change this setting for all versions of my program? Or some way to increment my assembly version so this doesn't happen? I can't believe that other programs (like MS Outlook) require resetting this setting each time there is an incremental program update.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Related
For some reason, once and again I start VB6, and the window "Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2012" pops up.
This is a screenshot:
I guess something was changed and either VB6 or VS2012 struggles to find it again.
Am I right?
I used ProcMon to determine which files are trying to be accessed, but it did not spit out anything.
This window is highly annoying. It takes around 3 minutes to be unloaded.
At the next start of VB6, it pops up again.
I can cancel it, but having to do that is also really annoying. Also I would like to find out what causes this behaviour.
Can anybody help?
ps: Sometimes when I click "Cancel", I get the following message:
ps: At least I have found out that the process is MSIEXEC.EXE that does this...
It could be a Windows Installer shortcut being used to start Windows (you can tell in the shortcut's property if you can't edit it). Make a normal shortcut to vb6.exe.
Try this selecting VS2012 (this is Vista but other versions have similar)
Fixit
Microsoft have a range of automatic programs to fix common problems. For Windows Installer problems see
http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall/en-us
For the full list visit
http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/en-us
When you choose to download it, choose the option to run on another computer. Then you can save it to your harddisk in a folder. Open the folder, open the folder Fix it Portable, and run Launch Fix It. It will contain all 27 Fixits.
How To Use Fixit
Start Fix problems that programs cannot be installed or uninstalled.
Next you'll be asked Install or Uninstall.
If Installing and you have previously installed or attempted to install try uninstalling first.
Next you will get a list. Choose from that list.
Since some time I register an annoying behavior in Visual Studio 2010 SP1 under Windows Vista. Sometimes my user settings are lost on start up. This happens most of the time, when I had open the same solution parallel in two instances of VS and after closing both, the settings are lost on the next start of VS.
I do not change settings while running the two VS.
Did anyone experience the same behavior?
Of cource I saved my settings, but especially my keyboard short cuts cannot be fully restored, because I overwrote some global default short cuts. So that's what bugs me about it most. ([EDIT] This is an independent problem, see Microsoft Connect.)
Is there a way to get VS not to kill my settings on start?
VS overwrites user settings on close. If you want to avoid such problems, you should close an instance where you made changes last.
Just installed VS2010 express for Windows Phone last night. Install went smoothly. It creates a project, compiles, and deploys the app to the emulator.
Here's the problem: When I try to "Add Reference" through the Project menu, I do not get the Add Reference dialog box. Same thing if I right click References in the solution explorer and click Add Reference. That's not all. "File...Open" and "File...Open Project" also fail to throw up an open file dialog box. When attempting any of these actions, the IDE quickly loses and regains focus. Even pressing a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+O) causes the IDE to quickly lose and regain focus, but no open file dialog box appears.
This is what I have tried, not particularly in this order:
1. Turned off UAC
2. Monitored file and registry access using Process Monitor during a File...Open operation. File activity showed mostly "SUCCESS" with a few "FAST IO DISALLOWED" and a few "INVALID DEVICE REQUEST" results. Registry activity showed mostly "SUCCESS" with some "NAME NOT FOUND" and a few "BUFFER OVERFLOW" results.
3. Created a new, clean Windows account to run the IDE from
4. Forced a test project to add a reference to "System.Xml.Linq" by editing the ".csproj" project file. Project failed to load in the IDE.
I don't have these problems at all on 2 other Windows 7 computers with VS2010 C# express beta 2 installed. One machine is 32bit and the other 64bit, both Home Premium edition.
My system: Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Other Visual Studio products installed: VS2008 C# express, VS2008 C++ express
One other thing to note: Several months ago I installed the non-phone distribution of VS2010 C# express beta 2, and I had the same exact problems. Back then I chalked it up to being beta and went back to VS2008 C# express, where I do not have these issues.
Matt, if you're still reading this post, I have a solution:
Do you have the Tablet PC Input Service disabled? Enable and start it. This was suggested to me over on the MSDN forums, and it worked for me immediately. I have this service disabled, but I turned it on, fired up VS2010, and it just worked right off. I confirmed this solution by turning the service off again, starting VS2010, and noting that it breaks once again. Turned the service on once more, started VS2010, and it works perfectly. Amazing.
I do not think it's acceptable to require this particular service just for VS2010 to function correctly. Hopefully they fix this in the inevitable service pack. FYI, I had this service disabled because I turn off all services I don't require. So now I have two "wisptis.exe" tasks eating up ~8MB of RAM and starting every time I turn on the PC. Or I can shut the service off again and just resort to my previous workaround. haha
Here is a work around.
Just run wisptis.exe from command line and start the visual studio.
If you don't wanna run each and every time you restarts the computer,then just put wisptis.exe in a .bat file and move it to the startup folder,so that it will be automatically executed on each and every startup.
EDIT 1 :- Or else just press 'WIN'+'R' and type 'wisptis' and press 'Enter'.
I experienced the exact same problem. I'm running VS2010 Express on Windows 7 (x64). Re-enabling the "Tablet Input" service "fixed" the problem.
VS2010 has always worked fine, and then suddenly for no apparent reason "ctrl-O", "Add Reference", "Open Project", and other similar functions stop working.
No amount of repair/uninstall/reinstall would fix the problem.
I always disable the "Tablet Input" service on Win 7, because I use a Wacom tablet, and dislike the visual notification of (tablet) mouse clicks this service causes. VS2010 has so far been working fine in this setup with Tablet input service disabled, but then suddenly the problem arose, and I had to re-enable the "Tablet Input" service to make it go away.
I have another computer with the exact same setup - Win 7 (x64), VS2010 Express, Wacom table, and disabled "Tablet Input" service - and here VS2010 is still working just fine. Both computers also have almost identical software installed and updates installed, so I still have no idea where the difference lies.
Has anyone had more luck in finding the root cause?
I also use Power Toys, but I have not been able to correlate this installation with the problematic behavior of VS2010.
I'm having close to the same issue with the exception that my New | Project dialog works, but Add Reference and Ctrl + O just cause the interface to lose focus and regain focus without every launching the dialog. I have tried running devenv /ResetAddin and devenv /ResetSkipPkgs, but neither helped. I have UAC turned off as well. I don't experience the issue with VS2008.
Here's my setup:
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate RTM
Visual Studio 2008 Team System Developer Edition with Team Explorer 2008 and VS2008 SP1
The only addins I run:
GhostDoc
.NET Reflector
Other Related Products I run:
Microsoft Expression Studio 3
SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition with SP1
tonight I uninstalled the VS2010 Express beta 2+phone tools and installed the now final RTM VS2010 Express C#. It STILL had the problem! For kicks, I tried importing a VS2008 project because it has some extra references in the project, and I was curious how they would be handled. The project imported successfully, but compiled with errors that it couldn't find a reference for a SyndicationFeed object, even though the reference for it was successfully added to the References list upon import. I remove the reference (System.ServiceModel.Web), hold my breath, and try to Add Reference one more time. Amazingly, the Add Reference dialog pops up, I add the reference back, recompile and bingo. File...Open and File...Open Project now throw up the proper file open dialogs as well.
To be sure this isn't a fluke only related to importing an old project, I shut down VS2010, start it back up, create a brand new project and try Add Reference. It works still. The File/Project dialogs also show up. I have no idea how, but importing a VS2008 project apparently made VS2010 correct itself on my machine.
Thank you for replying to my post. After hours of Googling over the past few days, your post is the first I've seen of anyone else having this issue besides me.
I found a workaround, but it's annoying having to do this:
1. Create a new project
2. Close VS2010, don't bother saving the new project
3. Start VS2010 again, and everything works as it should. I can access the Add Reference dialog, and I can do a File...Open and Open Project from the menu and toolbar.
If I close VS2010 and start it again, it is broken once more. Performing my workaround fixes it again for that session.
Still looking for a permanent solution.
I finally figured out a work-around. If I temporarily disable the Power Tools, the original Add References dialog opens fine. After adding my references, I can enable the Power Tools again.
Any time i try to debug in visual studio 2008 my entire system will freeze whenever a breakpoint is hit.
I can move the mouse around and that remains responsive but nothing i click on does anything,
I can bring up the task manager but can't do anything with it and i am able to lock/unlock the machine.
I tried a fix that i found via google that suggested i disable advanced text services but it didn't work. I am using visual studio 2008 with SP1 running on Windows XP Pro, asking here is my last hope before formating/reinstalling so i hope someone can help me out.
I debug by running the application in debug mode, the freeze happens no matter what the project size and it seems as if it is just the entire GUI that freezes, the computer carries on working just fine i just can't do anything with it because the GUI is totaly unresponsive.
I found I only had this issue when I was using the keyboard to debug. If I used the toolbar debug buttons, I didn't have an issue.
To "fix" this, I set the LowLevelHooksTimeout to 300ms (from 5000ms). You may need to add the DWORD if it isn't already there.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop\LowLevelHooksTimeout
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\LowLevelHooksTimeout
Restart after making this change for good measure.
How big is the project you are running? When I did a Find last night on a huge open source project, I got kind of the same behavior.
Also, did you try Uninstalling just VS2008, then Reinstalling with only the options you use.
Have you tried disabling "Call ToString()" debugger option? This is ON by default, and is known to deadlock.
I have this problem where I open Visual Studio and the internal windows are scattered all over the place. None of them are docked; some that should be visible have become invisible and vice versa. I then have to spend ages getting the windows back where I like them.
It only seems to happen with some solutions and only appeared recently.
For the life of me I can't fix the problem. Has anyone else been through this?
Sounds like there is definitely a problem with Visual Studio retaining your settings between round-trips and possibly your Visual Studio settings profile in general.
The solution I'd recommend is firstly to reset all settings, secondly customize things to your personal preference and finally take a backup of those customized settings. The idea is that this settings backup file can be used later to automate a quick settings restore to a point you are happy with. The following steps show how to do this and hopefully should sort out even the most confused Visual Studio setting issues:
Close down all instances of Visual Studio.
Go to Start > Programs > Visual Studio 200X > Visual Studio Tools > and choose 'Visual Studio 200X Command Prompt'
Run the sligthly less well known 'devenv.exe /ResetUserData' command. With this command you will lose all of your Visual Studio environment settings and customizations. Because of this, the /ResetUserData switch is not officially supported and Microsoft does not advertise it (the switch is not described in the help for devenv.exe you get when you type devenv.exe /? in a command prompt). Importantly, wait for the resulting devenv.exe process to disappear from Task Manager or even better Process Explorer.
When the process disappears from Task Manager or Process Explorer, run 'devenv.exe /ResetSettings' which will restore the IDE's default settings and eventually start a single instance of Visual Studio.
Now in Visual Studio choose 'Import and Export Settings...' near the bottom of the 'Tools' menu to start the Import and Export Settings Wizard.
Choose 'Reset all settings' radio button and Next > Choose 'No, just reset settings, overwriting my current settings' and Next > Choose your personal 'Settings Collection' preference, I would choose Visual C# Development Settings here (Note: What you choose here has an effect on keyboard shortcuts etc. but you can always repeat this process until happy) and click Finish.
When you get the message that 'Your settings were successfully reset to XXXXXX Development Settings.' click Close then spend a good bit of time adding any personal customizations to Visual Studio such as opening windows you always want open, customizing toolbars and adding any toolbar buttons etc.
When you are finished with your personal customization and completely happy with your setup go again to Tools > 'Import and Export Settings...'
Choose 'Export selected environment settings' radio button and Next > Tick 'All Settings' and Next > Choose a file name and directory and click Finish to store a backup of your current settings in a .vssettings file.
In future if things go haywire again head back to Tools > 'Import and Export Settings...' and this time choose 'Import selected environment settings' radio button and Next > Choose 'No, just import new settings, overwriting my current settings' and Next > Either choose the name of your .vssettings file from the list (usually under the My Settings folder) or Browse.. to where you saved the file and Next > Tick 'All Settings' and click Finish.
Importantly, close the single instance of Visual Studio. Any future instance you open should retain your latest customizations.
Visual Studio corrupts its settings with regular monotony (always has done, I've been suffering from this since the Visual C++ days, and it's still a bugbear in VS2013).
Often this seems to be totally at random, but it's highly probable after a crash.
It will also lose any changes to your settings if Visual Studio doesn't shut down cleanly - for some reason instead of saving back the settings when you OK the dialog, VS seems to wait until it quits to write back your changes, so after changing options I always quit and restart to ensure the changes have been flushed to disk. Similarly you should never change options with 2 or more instances of VS running, as the last one to quit will overwrite the settings.
In particular, there is an easily reproducible case: If you launch two or more copies at the same time (by which I mean if you start up two or more copies, so they are all initialising at the same time), they seem to fight over the settings file and it becomes corrupted or resets to defaults.
The best two workarounds I've found are:
Never launch more than one instance at a time. If you need to run several instances concurrently, then wait for the first one to finish loading its Solution before you start to launch the next.
Always use Tools > Import and Export Settings to save your settings to a backup file, so that recovering from this corruption only takes a few seconds each time it happens.
Another smaller, but still rather irritating habit is that if VS is minimised when it is quit (e.g. by shutting down), it corrupts its window position information and the next time you run it, it will be maximised.
I had a similar issue when the My Documents folder was stored on a mapped drive. If I opened VS before mapping the drive, VS would act as if it was the first time it had been opened. I solved this issue by storing the environment settings on the local disk.
I just ran into this problem too (seemed to trigger after a windows update) where I kept getting some bogus window layout no matter what I did. The above suggestions didn't work either. But luckily the suggestions in: Why doesn't VS 2008 IDE remember my preferences? of deleting:
%APPDATA%\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\windows.prf
worked.
TP
Actually I worked out what the culprit was: previous VS crashes.
If one of my Visual Studio instances crashes for whatever reason - the next time I start up VS, I get a weird batch of settings. The behaviour depends on various factors, like whether or not I had other instances of VS open at the time.
I tried Peter McG's solution, still didn't help.
What ended up working for me was to delete my VS Solution User Options (.sou). Located in the same directory as my solution.
Only bad thing is you have to redo all of your settings. This included my exception changes. Not to much to change, but if you have a lot of customization it could be a real pain.
There must be something in that file messing everything up, but deleting the whole file is quick and easy.
Which solution you're opening shouldn't matter because those settings are not solution-specific. But I wonder do you maybe have Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 installed? If so, opening a solution created in 2005 will open VS 2005 and opening a 2008 solution will open VS 2008. You may have VS 2005 even if you didn't install it. For example, InfoPath 2007 installs a VS 2005 shell.
First I would position the windows where you want them, then do a Tools -> Export Settings and include only the window layouts. That way you at least have something you can revert to.
Then I would check Tools -> Options -> Import Export Settings and make note of where the "Automatically Save My Settings To This File" path is set to. Keep an eye on that file. Do you have any sync software that may be inadvertently overwriting it? Does it point to a non-existing location?
My issue is similar, but the result is the app crashes. The problem was this value
In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\MainWindow. It was set to "0 1000 -280 -100 3" probably due to having multiple screens and moving the UI around a lot.
Deleting this value allowed the app to restart successfully. It gets recreated on startup.
I'm facing similar issue. And it also only started recently, like, within the last 30 days or so. The only thing I remember changing in this period was updating Resharper 4.5.
I have experienced something similar. In my case the text editor colors (c# editor for example) are going haywire. The only solution that I tried and works for me is change color theme so something else and then back to what I want.
In my case its not the Window layout being corrupted but Intellisense offering code completion and pop-up help. Never had this issue for the last decade, now it happens 3 times a day at least. Win8.1, Visual Studio 2013, ReSharper 8 and now ReSharper 9 (in hopes the upgrade would fix it).
I now routinely have to
close the solution,
Tools/Import-Export Settings/Reset all settings
Close Visual Studio
Open Visual Studio Import my saved settings
RE-open the solution and continue working
I can then work fine again for quite some time until something goes awry... lets say a stack-overflow while I'm debugging. At that point I just know my settings are screwed and my Intellisense is dead again.
I'm starting to wonder if it isn't something to do with a latest Visual Studio update. There are things in there I never use like the advertising crap and Office development integration. MS Office has its own issues, like Office 64 bit not being seen by any other application such as Quicken as an installed email program. Or maybe its a conflict with ReSharper which wants to overtake and 'extend' the Intellisense feature.
Either way, I'm sure its a different manifestation of the same issue: Visual Studio settings are going sideways during normal use.
I just came across this issue in VS 2012, reset window layout was doing nothing.
I extrapolated
%APPDATA%\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\windows.prf
to
%appdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\Windows.index
... deleted it and was back in business!
Make sure you close all instances of VS first!