what can cause Visual Studio to rebuild my entire solution all the time?

Question

I have a largeish solution in Visual Studio 2008 (around 30 projects, all C# and Script#), including some test projects.

When I start the application or run my tests, way to often Visual Studio rebuilds everything rather than just the changed parts and their dependencies.

If I don't change anything at all, it will not rebuild, but as soon as I change any file in any project, everything in the entire solution will be rebuilt, even the 90% of projects which were not affected at all.

Does anyone have an idea of what the problem can be, or provide me a hint of where I can start troubleshooting it?

Edit: To clarify, all projects in the solution are rebuilt, even those which are not directly or indirectly dependent on the project that has actually been modified. Even those which the modified project depends on, so it can't be a simple project reference issue.

Answer 1

You can use the configuration manager to set up a specific config for your sln that will only build the projects you specify. You can find it under Build->Configuration Manager

Answer 2

The build sequence is determined by the project references (dependencies).

To avoid to build the projects depending on the project you've edited, you can use Build Current under the menu Build.

I setup CTL+B as shortcut to Build Current which saved me a lot of time than F6. Everytime I just use CTL+B after I save a file.

Hopefully this will help.