Is there a way to get Visual Studio to unload dlls?

Question

I have a Visual Studio 2008 project with some legacy native C++ DLL projects, and some newer WPF projects that use the DLLs. When I open the WPF xaml windows in the designer, Visual Studio loads up the native DLLs to be able to display the window.

The problem is, is that if I now need to make a change in the legacy DLLs, I need to close all the WPF windows and restart visual studio to be able to build them. Obviously, I need to close the tabs that are using the DLLs, but after I do that, is there a way to tell Visual Studio to unload those DLLs without a full restart?

Answer 1

I've had similar problems. A little bit better than restarting is removing references to the dlls, then adding the references back in.

Answer 2

Sounds like a bug in VS. You could try getting VS 2008 SP1 to see if that fixes it. Otherwise, go here and report it: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio. They'll help with any workaround if there is one.