Build Incrementally in VS 2005

Question

We have a 50 projects solution in VS 2005.

Is any way to get incremental build if nothing was changed?

It is kind of doing it now, but it executes all prebuild and post build events for each project.

Is any way to prevent it?

Answer 1

Visual studio does what you describe by default, custom build steps are not executed for up to date projects.

Something in your dependancies or build settings are causing it to update all builds. Unfortunately it's hard to track down without additional infromation.

Answer 2

If you know ahead of time which ones you would like to build or not build, you could create different build configurations that only build specified projects.

This solution doesn't use dependencies at all, so it will only work if you have a few different distinct groups of projects.

Answer 3

Have a look at the Build Events tab. Notice the dropdown at the bottom that says Run the post-build event:. Does it say "On successful build"? Try changing it to "When the build updates the project output".