Disable or fix #ifdef-sensitive colouring and intellisense in Visual Studio - visual-studio

Question

The problem: My syntax highlighting and IntelliSense are broken. I have a C++ source file like this:
#include "stdafx.hpp"
#ifdef SOMETHING
do_some_stuff;
#endif
where stdafx.hpp (the precompiled header for the project) includes a .h file that says:
#ifdef DEFINE_SOMETHING
#define SOMETHING
#endif
and DEFINE_SOMETHING is defined in the project properties for the project (under C++ / Preprocessor).
Visual Studio is losing track, and displaying do_some_stuff; (which is actually lots of lines of code) in plain grey - I have neither syntax colouring nor IntelliSense.
The question: How can I either make Visual Studio get this right (unlikely) or switch off the fact that it's greying-out code that it thinks is #ifdef'd out?
(Rearranging the code is not an option - it's a large and complex system whose files are built in various environments, Visual Studio being only one of them. I'm using Visual Studio 2005, but I'd be interested to know whether this is fixed or workaroundable in a later version.)

Answer 1

If someone still interested - to turn off graying out #ifdef:
Go to Tools -> Options
Open Text Editor -> C/C++ -> Formatting
Uncheck Colorize inactive code blocks in a different color
In VS19, it's Tools / Options / Text Editor / C/C++ / View / Inactive Code / Show Inactive Blocks.

Answer 2

Following previous answer of aousov I check my VSCode and found this setting:
C_Cpp: Dim Inactive Regions
Controls whether inactive preprocessor blocks are colored differently than active code. This setting has no effect if IntelliSense is disabled or if using the Default High Contrast theme.
in Extensions / C/C++
This may be related to the version you are using (in my case 1.46.1).
Best,
Geoffroy

Answer 3

The problem you describe is par for the course in VS 2005. It is fixed in Visual Studio 2010 and later due to the completely redesigned Intellisense system. This is not directly applicable to your problem, but here's some info on the underlying architecture: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2009/05/27/rebuilding-intellisense.aspx
There are some things you could try, and some project structure changes that can help minimize the problem's frequency, but whatever you do will be hit or miss, and the problem will eventually resurface again regardless. The only real solution is to use a newer IDE.
You can continue to use the VS 2005 build tools by installing VS 2010 along with Daffodil (http://daffodil.codeplex.com), then build your projects with the v80 platform toolset in VS 2010. This makes the migration fairly straightforward, with no need for any source code changes.

Answer 4

Since #define SOMETHING is defined inside stdafx.hpp, indicating that it's always defined since DEFINE_SOMETHING is defined in project configuration, would it be out of the question to also define SOMETHING explicitly in project configuration?
I used to have similar issues in VS2005 and 2008, and redundant explicit definitions sometimes helped.

Answer 5

I fixed this (in VSCode) by changing C_Cpp.default.intelliSenseMode
"C_Cpp.default.intelliSenseMode": "windows-gcc-x64"
I am building an ARM project on a micro-controller. Its not 64 bit either. But this does parse the directives correctly.
For Science I tried Widows-gcc-ARM and that also correctly lit up the regions that are truly active. I also know for a fact that gcc is setup and configured on my windows machine, and while I have clang and msvc, I dont use them and dont know that they work- so it could be why gcc works better for me.
You can experiment with this setting, but I am fairly certain the resolution resides in this option.
I do not know the equivalent VS option, I am sorry.