Can I fix corrupt Visual Studio 2008 toolbars/windows without having to reinstall?

Question

I think my local install of Visual Studio 2008 has gone a bit scooters.

• When I'm debugging I'm unable to view the "Watch" windows - I'll see one come up when I click on it but then it disappears.
• Nothing wants to stay where it's supposed to - the "Watch 2" window wants to stay on the other monitor, there's intermittently one or two or neither of them, etc.
• There's now a large gray area at the bottom of the screen which changes shape every time I Alt+Tab

Anyone know of a good way to fix or "reset" everything in VS2008 without having to resort to a reinstall?

Answer 1

2 things you can try:

1) Window menu -> Reset Window Layout

or

2) Close Visual Studio, and then delete the .suo file in your project folder. Re-open your project and all settings should be reset. This is the Studio User Options file. You might want to make a backup copy of it if you don't like the results.

Answer 2

In the Customize dialog, on the Toolbars tab, there's a Reset button. Try this first.

Then there's a [Window->Reset Window Layout] command. Try this second.

If it's still the same you could try the following command (as specified here):

devenv.exe /resetsettings

Failing that you would have to try deleting some of the VS stored data files, in here:

%appdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0

however that could be risky and is your last resort.

If it still happens then you should reinstall.

If it still happens after reinstalling then you should reformat ;)

Answer 3

A conflation of a few of the other suggestions here that won't trash all your settings:

• Under Tools/Import and Export settings, save all of your current settings
• Close VS and go to the command line and do devenv /resetsettingsD
• Start VS and in Tools/Import and Export settings, load in the settings you just exported, but uncheck the option to restore the window positions

There's also a VS2008 hotfix that fixes a window positioning bug that I think is related (and can often lead to a crash). I think it's this one