Visual Studio 2010: very slow web applications debugging!

Question

I recently installed Visual Studio 2010 (Ultimate edition, final version released in April), and found that debugging a web application became very slow (2-3 times slower than in Visual Studio 2008)!

I took the same web application and checked the speed of loading of one of its pages in VS 2008 and VS 2010, and compared the time it takes to load the page.

I tested it using 2 approaches: 1) debugging under ASP.NET Development Server (by pressing the "Start" button) and 2) using ASP.NET Development Server without debugging (by using the "View in Browser" menu command).

And I got the following results for Visual Studio 2008 and 2010.

1) ASP.NET Development Server withoud debugging ("View in Browser"): the speed of page loading is the same in VS 2008 and 2010.

2) Debugging under ASP.NET Development Server ("Start" button): in VS 2010 the page takes more time to load than in VS 2008 - VS 2010 debugging is 2-3 times slower than in VS 2008!

3) At the same time, when debugging a web application in VS 2008, it takes the same time to load the page compared to when using only the "View in Browser" command. That is, VS 2008 debugging does not introduce any overhead to page loading in the web browser!

I wanted to make sure that other people have the same problem with slow debugging of web applications in VS 2010. Can this issue be solved by any means?

BTW, I am using Windows XP SP3.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Disable Intellitrace (historical debugger) - it enable jumping "back in time" during debug but it slows down debugging.

You can disable it from the options->intellitrace

Answer 2

Try 'Delete all breakpoints' from the Debug menu. It sped up my web application debugging by 10 times.

Answer 3

After incredibly slow debugging for months I finally discovered the cause (even after disabling intellitrace).

It turned out to be PC Tools internet security -> IntelliGuard -> 'Behaviour Guard'

This is a hips like protection system that monitors the 'signature' of system operations

I disabled this feature and wow what a speed difference - 'stepping into' lines of code in debug now has almost zero delay. I re-enabled Intellitrace and can use it with only a very slight speed hit.

Tino

Answer 4

I did find out what you have to do:

1. Disable Intellisense
2. Disable the Graphics Rendering Editor Function, this causes editor slowness with some graphics cards.
3. Disable the Sourcecontrol that is set by default to the Microsoft Server Product.

I just can tell you, that VS2010 is a very good product, if you know these few things, and setup this.

Answer 5

You can uncheck the Symbols servers.