views:

9559

answers:

116

I love Visual Studio about 90% of the time, but that last 10% it is such a PITA it makes me want to launch my monitor off the desk.

My latest annoyances:

  • It won't remember my toolbar settings. I don't want any toolbars, ever. Quit popping open the CSS editor or XML editor or text editor everytime I open a file.
  • Doesn't remember which regions I had expanded or collapsed and as far as I know there is no way to tell it to always open files with the regions expanded.
  • When editing CSS or HTML the damn error list wants to pop up each time I start a tag and haven't finished it yet. First of all, don't pop up at all. And if you're going to ... give me a couple seconds to finish what I'm doing.

The best part ... ReSharper :)

EDIT [Jay Bazuzi]: It seems like this discussion is only productive if it's focused on the latest released version. Set the title to VS2008.

+16  A: 
  • It doesn't use the reasonably-standard Alt-LeftArrow and Alt-RightArrow for back/forward.
  • It doesn't automatically close "saved and not used for a while" tabs in the way that Eclipse does

Most of the rest of my annoyances are fixed by ReSharper, to be honest. (Things like Intellisense presenting overloads one line at a time, instead of in a multiline box.)

Jon Skeet
i don't even remember what it's like without resharper ... I forgot you could install one and not the other :P
Kyle West
You can defined any keyboard shortcut how do you want. Where is the problem :)?
TcKs
I have VS setup like that. I use Alt+Left and Alt+Right to move through either (switched via a keystroke) :1) VS Find Results2) Resharper Find Results3) Error Listctrl + alt + left and ctrl + alt + right are used to move through "edit positions"This did require custom macros, however.
Scott Wisniewski
what's wrong with ctrl+tab?
borisCallens
Resharper Resharper Resharper, bleh. Great for all you C# devs but not available for us poor old C++'ers :'(
demoncodemonkey
@demoncodemonkey Visual Assist X is a godsend for C++ies. Try the 30-day trial.
Ben Straub
Agreed. Ctrl+Backspace should understand camelCasing as Eclipse does.
Mehrdad Afshari
Good point about alt+arrows. Those well known and widely used shortcuts should be the same in studio (i.e. ctrl+shift+tab should reopen closed file).
Arnis L.
I always map alt-left/right to view.navigatebackwards and view.navigateforwards.
Jørn Jensen
+82  A: 

When IntelliSense stops working.

Brian R. Bondy
Visual Assist X makes intellisense work. I got sick of it failing at random.
Rob
I have this problem too, looks like I really should try Visual Assist X (seen it earlier today, but this gets me want to try it)
TomWij
never happened to me, r u coding in C# or VB.NET?
dr. evil
Once you go Visual Assist, you never go back.
Nailer
Never had that happening...
borisCallens
+1 ditto.. will look for visual assist
Dead account
I usually find that when IntelliSense stops working, something in the code is not quite right. Correct that problem and IntelliSense is back. (Or was that in VS2005?) Anyway, I still treat IntelliSense "disappearing" as a reason to check the code for problems.
peSHIr
@fm There is one more language VS supports but I guess if you're are happy with C# or VB.NET you shouldn't bother with it...
Piotr Dobrogost
It happens on markup pages, aspx
Elijah Glover
It happens in C++, aspx. Never seen it happen in VB/C#.
Mehrdad Afshari
VS2010 has a new C++ IntelliSense engine. For VS2008, you can track down the problems via this info from Boris Jabes (Visual C++ team): "As for the second issue, you can help us (and yourself) narrow down the problem by enabling our Intellisense logging facility. Go to your project configuration, under the C++ advanced options, add the switch "/acplog:<filename>". You can then delete the ncb file, and reload the solution. Our parser will log its output to the filename specified, which you can send us for analysis."
280Z28
@Me: the log file is long, but will tell you exactly what caused the problem(s) and you'll be able to fix them.
280Z28
I'm using VB and C# - and IntelliSense stops working all the time. That is, it works fine for a while, but then stops. Never happened in 2005. But in 2008 it happens a couple of times per week! Sometimes restarting the IDE fixes it. Other times nothing but a reboot helps. I'm baffled. I tried this trick, but it didn't help me: http://hugeonion.com/2009/01/11/visual-studio-2008-broken-intellisense-when-debugging-c-code/.
Dave C
It doesn't work inside html tags, which is a bit of a pain. I hope that's fixed in 2010.
optician
For C++ just delete the .ncb file regularly - forces an intellisense rebuild
Martin Beckett
+9  A: 

We have a solution with about 60 projects, one of which is a user controls library with 30+ controls in it. The toolbox goes mad when you open the project, or a form designer or various other common tasks. It means it can take minutes to open a form.
We recently had a problem, I compiled a release of a solution, published it, tested it and it was the previous version. Visual Studio refused to compile the new version, I had to delete the entire source tree form my working folder then re-get from source safe.
@Josh - Debug -> Exceptions - Yes, where'd it go!
It doesn't seem to be able to keep any of my tool windows or toolbars in the place I put them for more than 10 minutes. Even when I make sure I have only one instance open, get it all set up nice, close it. Re-open it everything is still fine. Open another instance to do something else and its all moved. Currently its think is to make my error list/output window that I normally have across the bottom just high enough to display the tabs and move the vertical split between them about 600px to the left.

pipTheGeek
Why on earth would a solution have 60 projects. That's beyond excessive. Maybe you should break those projects up in to functional units and reference the assemblies that are produced.
jcollum
We intend to split the large solution. But the annoyance isn't with the way the large solution is handled, it is the way the toolbox handles a not very large number of user controls. Which are mostly in one project.
pipTheGeek
You can unload some projects temorarely (you seldomly need them all at once)
borisCallens
I've had the same problem, and ended up disabling the auto-fill toolbox option, which is not very convenient either...
Benjol
As I don't normally do UI stuff I might try that. Leave the GUI folks struggling the *<Insert chosen swearing here>* toolbox.
pipTheGeek
@pipTheGeek, hehe, I DO do UI stuff, but it's less painful to add a Label, then change it's type in the Designer.cs $( than to sit their waiting for VS to come down from its bad trip.
Benjol
One reason to have so many projects in one solution is refactoring support. If you're developing in-house, it makes it much easier for a lead developer to go through and do major refactoring.
Jess
A: 

My biggest annoyance is that it doesn't catch certain errors in C# unless you manually build or run a project that it catches in VB.NET at design time.

I've heard that this is fixed in VS 2008 SP1, but I'm stuck with VS 2005 at work.

R. Bemrose
Can you offer an example?
Jason Jackson
Just for laughs, I went and typed this into VS2k5's C# editor:Algebra blah = new Algebra();Now, there is no Algebra class. You know it, I know it, the editor doesn't and it currently says that there are no errors in the project.
R. Bemrose
In VS2008 is catches the mistake right away, and also gives me an error when I compile. It has been a while since I used VS2005 so you could be right about that C# IDE.
Jason Jackson
+4  A: 

No locking on tool window postitions. I make a sub-mm slip with the touchpad and I have to remember how to redock all the controls.

Intellisense goto declration/definition always going to the declaration.

The broken help system. I'm in a C++ file in a c++ project, I only have c++ support installed, I press f1 on a 'printf' statement - and it shows me the help for foxpro or some random language.

The build system in general. But specifically after generating an error it continues for 5mins creating a browse info and debugger file.

Martin Beckett
On your first point: That's part of why I don't like touch pads.
RobH
+20  A: 

The lack of speed in the newer versions, I want my 6.0 speed back in the vs2008! :P

John T
A while ago VS2010 was being touted as 'the new 6' for C++ development but from what I hear from testers this isn't the case. Sigh.
Rob
looks like another 2 years of 6.0 for me :)
John T
It's funny, I remember back when VS 6 came out, everyone was complaining about how slow it was, and they wanted 5 back.
Mystere Man
I could never go back to 6.
Greg D
Me neither, I just want it's speed :)
John T
You know... I'll happily take a performance hit, if it means the C++ compiler properly handles templates and ships with a functional version of the STL.
Tom
6 is ugly... I hate ugly IDEs :)
Mehrdad Afshari
I don't program for a fashion statement. I liked it because it was fast, not how it looked. It was very tolerable.
John T
IIRC vs2005 was actually slower than vs2008
Mauricio Scheffer
@Tom: And what exactly implies that a simple IDE must have a mediocre compiler? Beside the extremely flexible build system from VC++, of course.
gimpf
The C++ compiler still doesn't do templates or STL?! Jesus wept! I remember VS6 fondly.
Umber Ferrule
+11  A: 

I don't remember the specific ones, but I've been annoyed by a number of dialogs with bad (or no) resize behavior, meaning that long lines of text get truncated and you've no way of seeing the pertinent information at the end. Seems amateurish.

Though on the whole it's a very nice IDE.

frou
A: 

That it sometimes causes access failures when building in parallell. Extremely annoying, since it causes our automatic build machine to fail randomly.

JesperE
"access failures" == "access violation"?
Jay Bazuzi
No, file locking problems. Most oftenly mt.exe fails to update some file because it is being locked by some other process.
JesperE
+30  A: 

The best part ... ReSharper :)

This is actually one of the big weaknesses of Visual Studio, I think. As far as I have read on SO, a lot of programmers do not want to code without ReSharper any more - the annoyance is that this addon seems to incorporate a lot of functionality which should actually be core components, and are core components in other IDEs.

Disclaimer: I have not used ReSharper, yet, but SO has several questions dealing with stuff like “How can I do Feature X from Eclipse/Netbeans/… in Visual Studio?”, which can quite often be answered with “Visual Studio cannot do this, get ReSharper”.

hangy
CodeRush Express is now an option, and it's free: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/dd218053.aspx
Jay Bazuzi
That is cool, and I will surely try this at work the next week, but still, some important functionality is only available as an add-on and for an relatively expensive product such as VS, this is a bit sad.
hangy
Well keep in mind that the company that made Resharper, JetBrains, introduced many new IDE features in IntelliJ IDEA years ago.
Min
+3  A: 

VS2008 SP1 caused more problems that it fixed for our team. I am trying to work with MS via Connect, but progress is slloooowwwwwww. 1) IDE disappears if you have a pane floated (Callstack, etc) and you stop debugging. Already in Connect and MS claims we must wait for VS2010. 2) Break points are not hit, or breaks on random x86 instructions in a C# project. We have a possible fix from MS 3) IDE disappers when editing cs proj props, and certain xaml files are open. MS escalated this to their dev team 4) Other cases where IDE disappears/dies

Our productivity dropped a lot after SP1. No s/w is perfect, not mine nor their's

GregUzelac
It disappears plenty on ASPX files too. Rather annoying seeing our main product is a web site...
Greg Beech
+2  A: 

I don't know if this is in the latest version, but in VS2005 it annoys me that Ctrl+W does not close the currently open file. Ctrl+F4 is a bit awkward.

It also seems to take ages to realize that I corrected a mistake. Particularly if I paste something, it leaves the blue underline across two words - it thinks the previous word is still there.

DisgruntledGoat
Blue underlines are created when you run the compiler. You have to recompile to get them to go away.
Jay Bazuzi
I added Control-W and Control-Shift-W as shortcuts, because I was so used to them from Firefox that VS 2008 felt broken without them.
Kyralessa
Control-W: File.Close. Control-Shift-W: Window.CloseAllDocuments.
280Z28
+29  A: 

If you don't want to pay for ReSharper, consider CodeRush Express for C#; it's free. It sounds like Microsoft did something to make that happen, but I don't know what.

Jay Bazuzi
Wow, great find!
Robert S.
like powerful! thanks :) vote up!
ecleel
It's nice, though I stopped using it due to some stability issues. :(
Greg D
Please bear in mind DevExpress has a full paid for version of CodeRush and RefactorPro which together are Similar to ReSharper and certainly fit better with Visual Studio GUI. They also have a full component suite highly recommend.
PeteT
I use CodeRush and highly recommend it. The latest version includes a test runner that works with MSTest, NUnit, and various others. You can easily run a test from right in your code, even if the class in question isn't public.
Kyralessa
Just get the beta / EAP versions of ReSharper...
baron
A: 

When I saw/used Visual Studio 2008, I was not specially impressed with most stuff because of the reason that it was exposing the advancements in .NET technologies. As a developer I need tool that make my everyday work easy. Having worked with linux editors and mac editors that in no way do as much as visual studio does but I absolutely love using editors like Kate or TextMate or E which have absolutely awesome text editing features. I would personally like to have themes like Zenburn etc working out of the box. I would definitely like Microsoft to collaborate with experts at JetBrains or DevExpress and include it in VS instead of plugin. I saw PDC2008 presentation for VS2010 almost stopped my bitchin...

Peace!

Perpetualcoder
+192  A: 

No multimonitor support...

bh213
Apparently this is being addressed and is coming in 2010!!! I mean, come on microsoft, you have no-one there that uses two monitors??!?!?
Gary Willoughby
are you serious? it can't handle 2 screens? ouch!
scunliffe
Well, you can use two (or more) monitors. Support isn't built into VS for it. So while you can drag it wide, or place various tool windows on a second (or third) monitor, VS won't let you do things like open to source files side by side, etc.
Jason Jackson
I think this deserves the question what should an IDE do to support multimonitors? Isn't placing the tool windows to the second monitor enough? What else?
utku_karatas
Main issue is that the tool windows on the second screen will always gain focus when the primary window gain focus. Meaning, it's pretty useless when you want VS and another program (like a browser) open at the same time.
jishi
You can actually pull all the tools windows etc out of the IDE, so it only somewhat multi monitor handicapped. Fortunately better support has been announced for VS2010.
Brian Rasmussen
Yeah the multi-monitor thing is a pain. We'll see how they pull it off in 2010. Meanwhile, I'm still editing some stuff in a 2nd editor. No intellisense but hey - at least I've got *some* control.
Dmitri Nesteruk
My debug windows (call stack, watch, etc) when on my second screen often crash as I enter or exit debug mode in VS2008. +1!!
Aardvark
MS issued a hotfix for the crash I mentioned. The crash reporting in VS actually sent me to a web site w/ the fix. AWESOME!
Aardvark
WHAT??!!! You are all crazy. If your monitors are setup as one desktop, just have VS maximized across both screens. Then, click on a source file and select "New horizontal tab group". Fit each side to one screen.
scottm
Not for me - i got only one 15" monitor. xD
Arnis L.
I solved this problem with a Dell 30". It soooooo paid off.
280Z28
@scotty, unfortunately my screen res is different on each monitor (and I don't want to standardize on the worst)
johnc
Yes, there is a fix for this in VS2010, but the multiple windows you can create are a bit weird - they don't work with Windows 7's Aero Snap which is very sad.
garethm
This lack of multimonitor support peeved me off so much I had to go and buy a 30" Dell. Plently of space and nice big fonts so the bugs stand out. The only problem now is going back to a normal monitor feels like I'm programming through a keyhole.
Alex
I think scottm meant "New vertical tab group" regarding:WHAT??!!! You are all crazy. If your monitors are setup as one desktop, just have VS maximized across both screens. Then, click on a source file and select "New horizontal tab group". Fit each side to one screen. – scottm Jun 11 at 19:53
szielenski
The vertical tabgroup thingy is NOT a real option. It is completely annoying that it always resize both regions when a toolbox left or right gets resized. I have to monitors so I don't need to fiddle with window sizes any more.
Robert Giesecke
@scottm, we're talking about *decent* multi-monitor support, not a half-assed work around. You obviously haven't worked much with other IDE's that do have mm support.
Ash
+2  A: 

It's a bit clunky for most anything that isn't done it's way. If I have a pile of C code, to build it, I must create solution and project and mess with all that. Some sort of Ad-Hoc project (e.g. all C files in this dir) would be very nice.

BCS
Amen. They sure don't make it easy to do things that don't fit into their little box.
Tom
+76  A: 

My biggest annoyance is that no one else can compete with it!

We need more choices for IDEs to promote ingenuity.

Gary Willoughby
I'd argue that Eclipse is superior (for pure-Java apps).
Oliver N.
Tried eclipse a few times but it never won my heart.
borisCallens
Eclipse yuck, sorry.
demoncodemonkey
I've found the latest version of Eclipse CDT to be more capable than Visual C++.
Josh Kelley
Haha... at my current job, more people use Vim than VC++ or Eclipse. Avoid the IDE lockin by avoiding the platform lockin!
Tom
They use Vim for debugging? Neat trick if they do.
paul
A funny story here, and why I would give you all of my upvotes for this answer. I live in Seattle, and wear the Tux hat from thinkgeek.com all the time. But, I'm an MS dev for 10 years now. I wear that hat because without competition MS would never improve on their toolset to keep us all hooked developing for their platforms! Maybe its been working LOL.
Marc
I'm a NetBeans fan myself (for Java).
cdmckay
I've been using Eclipse for my previous Java project, and now I'm back on Visual Studio for a C# project...Eclipse is way better natively, and it comes with a tons of free great plugins to make it even better. VS has a very poor ecosystem with few and often expensive plugins
Ksempac
Ray
Your annoyance is that it is too good?
johnc
Erm... no. If you read my answer, i'm annoyed that nothing else can compete with it. Competition is good, m'kay.
Gary Willoughby
Visual Studio has one other free alternative for C# projects other than Visual Studio C# Express, called SharpDevelop http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/
Spoike
Oliver: Who is serious about development and chooses to use Java? :)
tsilb
Eclipse has been improving steadily for the last few years and is perfectly usable....but it still feels like a Java GUI app from a first year CS undergrad.
Alex
Eclipse has at least as many problems as VS, but nevertheless the developers of VS should really analyze what's great about Eclipse and adopt those features to VS. For example highlighting all variable instances when clicking one, Open Type functionality (ctrl+shift+t) and possibility to go into a definition by control clicking a reference to it. These make everyday life a lot easier. And in my opinion autocomplete in Eclipse works better on some parts than in VS. Eclipse seems to guess very well what I want to choose, VS does not.
Carlos
If you like ReSharper, IntelliJ IDEA is SUPER GREAT. It doesn't support C# as far as I can tell, but language support is increasing (PHP, C++, etc...). There is a community (free) version of IDEA. It's hard to go back to VS after using all of the thoughtfully-added features in IDEA.
Jon
+59  A: 

Complete disregard for C++ support, which is basically the same as it was in VS 2005.

  1. Fragile intellisense.
  2. No refactoring support.
  3. No code-snippet support.
  4. broken build system.
actually since VS 6.0, when C++ was really the big thing. It makes no sense.
Brandon Corfman
Meh, Visual Assist isn't that expensive. Having to resort to a third party tool is a bit of a downer though.
Nailer
You forgot about all UI designer is put in one file without separation on header and source. C++ Builder has this for years... I'm pissed off on M$ how they treat C++ and it's users.
Piotr Dobrogost
VS2010 is really trying to address this. That's what the PR says, anyhow.
Greg D
There is no keyboard shortcut for switching between source and header files.
Piotr Dobrogost
Seriously, how hard would it be to support macro expansion?
Rick Minerich
VS2010 is addressing this, but at the cost of no intellisense at all for C++/CLI as I understand it. This is a disaster for us as we work with C++/CLI, and the intellisense - regardless of whether it's a bit rubbish - is still invaluable.
mackenir
+9  A: 

Creating a new file takes a ridiculous amount of mouse clicks.

Tim
Right Click -> New -> Ok?
FlySwat
thanks. I was using the menu file new and then selecting the appropriate one.
Tim
You don't do it normally, but you should analyze yourself now and then while working, write down your efficiency issues and try to fix them when you have time free. You will get more efficient over time.
TomWij
Tom: VC6 IDE had a single click "new" the .NET IDEs removed that ability. Now I have to know some keystrokes. This is hardly my shortcoming. Jonathan: that does not work - no context menu appears. Jay: that is still more clicks than I recall.
Tim
What's wrong with CTRL+N and selecting the file type and hitting enter?
BenAlabaster
balabaster - that is still 3 steps(!!!!) to get a new file. I should NOT have to choose what file type to just begin editing. That is ridiculous. I know it wants to be able to parse and all that nonsense, but just getting a simple editor is a desirable thing. So now I end up opening norepad sometimes just to do some simple editing/pasting form the clipboard, etc. The bottom line is: It should not take more than one keystroke or mouse click to open a new file for editing.
Tim
@Tim: if you want simple editing why are you using a powerful IDE such as Visual Studio?
kitchen
@kitche : Um, i didn;t know the two were exclusive... Sometimes I have some C++ projects open and need sopy and paste or when I try to create a new header or C++ file I want to do it with one mouse click or one keyboard shortcut. AGAIN - it should not take 2 or three clicks/keyboard actions to create a new file. That is absolutely stupid. Even MS word has a one-click new-file. As does paint. Why did the people on the MSDev team think that we developers wanted to waste time and clicks to open a new file?
Tim
Really who uses the mouse anymore?
PostMan
@Postman - mouse/kybd, doesn;t matter - it takes too many actions...
Tim
Ctrl+Shift+A -> Type file name -> Press return => no mouse clicks :D
Cecil Has a Name
@Cecil - OK, maybe I should have said many finger gestures. That is still a ridiculous number of gestures just to get an empty file to paste something to or starting typing in. I just want a ctrl-N and get a blank file - I can determine the file type and name later. Is that too much to ask?
Tim
@tim: Maybe you should design a keyboard with a dedicated new-file key? Jokes aside, I find the number of key presses or mouse clicks miniscule compared the number of key presses for writing and editing the contents of the file, so it is a very low "amortized" cost :)
Cecil Has a Name
It's 'minuscule', not 'miniscule' and it should not take that many keystrokes or mouseclicks to get an empty file window. That is just ludicrous. If I have a bunch of text copied in the clipboard and all i want to do is paste into a file, then the amortized cost is VERY HIGH.
Tim
+1  A: 

I love the squiggly lines indicating I have a mistake, but when I fix it, can't it check my new code a little quicker? I often find myself watching, waiting for it to disappear...

lack of multi-monitor support is a bigger issue though.. Excel and Visual Studio both seem like apps from the dark ages with no ability to take advantage of several screens. Does anyone code on a single screen anymore?

Viewing resources could use some more organization and options. It is like going to a folder and being forced to view all the files with only a single 'view'...

aSkywalker
you don't get that first problem with the vb.net editor part, one of my main frustrations with c# is its background compiler
Pondidum
Compilers are notoriously slow, and bumping their priority can hurt overall IDE performance and sap battery life on the go. They try to avoid invoking a compile with every keystroke, hence the delay between stopping typing and seeing the results.
280Z28
+36  A: 

I actually used to think Visual Studio was awesome... until I used Eclipse for a few years. Now I really miss programming Java in Eclipse.

Things I DONT like:

  1. Clicking on a variable doesn't highlight all of its instances, like in Eclipse.
  2. VS doesn't fix errors as well as Eclipse. For example, often a build error will spit out a message saying exactly how to fix it, but there isn't a way for the editor to just do it for you. In eclipse, almost every error has the "!" icon next to the line that will give you options to fix it automatically.
  3. Would like an easy way to clean up the "using" section. I don't want every new class to include things like LINQ and System.Text. Would be nice to have a "remove unneeded usings" option.
  4. All the different project templates get confusing and don't have good descriptions. It is also hard to convert between them. For example, there are seperate project templates for a WCF standalone service, and an IIS hosted WCF service. Both build a .dll, but only one has a web.config set up for IIS. The initial template descriptions aren't clear on which does what.
  5. Code isn't compiled as I type to find errors. In Eclipse, errors are highlighted in realtime as you type. In VS, you have to build the project to get errors to show up,a nd sometimes build it again after fixing to get the error to go away. Hence I find myself pressing "F6" after every method I create to make sure its correct.

Things I DO like:

  1. Visual designer. Top notch!
  2. typing "DataTable dt = new " pops up the intelisence window right to "DataTable()". Eclipse doesn't even do that :)
  3. typing "myClass.SomeEvent += " pops up a "press tab to insert" box to create a default handler method for the event.
  4. Generally pretty stable. I don't have it crash or lock up very often.
  5. Integrated ASP.NET/SCF test web server, instead of deploying to fullblown IIS for every test run.
rally25rs
Most of your "don't likes" are covered be ReSharper.
Stewart Johnson
Which costs even more money.
Matt
"Remove unused usings" is in VS2008. I use the "remove and sort" which is bound to Ctrl-Shift-U on my setup. I don't know if that's the default key though.
Jon Skeet
For point 1 you can have a look at the [Rock Scroll AddIn][1].For 3 check out the [Power Commands][2][1]: http://microsoftdev.blogspot.com/2008/05/rock-scroll-visual-studio-plugin.html[2]: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/PowerCommands
mxp
Thanks for the input. I try to avoid plugins because they tend to affect stability, but I'll take a look around.
rally25rs
+1, well rounded comments
jcollum
Followup to myself: I downloaded RockScroll for VS2k8, which is awesome! However now frequently when I close files, VS crashes. *sigh*
rally25rs
Um.. for point 3: Edit \ IntelliSense \ Organize Usings \ Remove and sort, or Right-click in code file \ Organize Usings \ Remove and sort.
Svish
Don't like #5: Switch to VB.NET, Visual Studio compiles as you type for VB.NET :) And #4 - you can customize the project templates, no?
MarkJ
@MarkJ: I suppose you could manually edit the proj template descriptions in: \Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates. Seems like they should just be descriptive out of the box though. Or add way to convert between them after creation. Most are just a GUID change in the .csproj file
rally25rs
+1 for "remove unneeded usings"
Harry
Most of them are also covered by CodeRush which is even more awesome than ReSharper [imho]
BenAlabaster
SP1 for VS2008 adds background compilation like you have in Eclipse.
JulianR
#1 is fixed in VS 2010
garethm
+1 for good points, but -1 for being a Java hippie. You came out even.
tsilb
I'd rather pay for VS + R# than using Eclipse again in my life.
Trap
+12  A: 
  • Mobile tools got moved from Standard 2005 to Professional 2008. Irritating.
  • 2008: Unit testing (MSTS) built in, but code coverage is only in Team Suite? That's pants.
  • 2005 & 2008: Installing service pack 1 should not take an entire freaking day. (I realize this is more or less related to the idiocy that is the Windows Installer. But really, it'd be faster just give everyone a new ISO to download and have them uninstall the original and reinstall with SP1.)
  • 2005 & 2008: Opening a solution with > 15 projects? Go grab a sandwich.
  • 2005 & 2008: Sometime during the day, I bring up the "Record Macro" toolbar accidentally at least once. I'm still not quite sure what key combo I keep pressing to trigger this.

Despite all that, you can pry my copy of Visual Studio from my cold, dead hands.

Nicholas Piasecki
What? 2008SP1 took like, half an hour to install for me.
TraumaPony
Really? Maybe I just need to my dev box out back and shoot the ol' girl. Took 4 hours for me, lots of disk churn.
Nicholas Piasecki
2005 SP took as long for me, and everyone I know. Perhaps its a fragmented filesystem that causes it. I just thought its a dog.
gbjbaanb
VS express with 2008SP1 take less than 45 min for me...
Daok
I had the same problems with 2005 Sp1, but it was partly due to are crap-for-bandwidth here (took forever to download, and we somehow got a corrupt download the first time). It did install slow, though.We're not using 2008 yet, alas.
peacedog
Same here with "Record Macro". The trick is to embrace it and actually record a macro when it happens. Come on, you know you want a macro!
bzlm
HA! Jeej for spontanious macros :P
borisCallens
It's ctrl+shift+r for record (and stop recording), and ctrl+shift+p to play back. :)
Ben Straub
Want a faster startup? Try using xslt or code to open your project files and sort the files and folders in each section in descending alphabetical order (Z-A) and resave them. Visual Studio populates the solution explorer with an insertion sort as it reads from the file. Of course when you save the projects again inside VS it'll put them back in alpha-order. :o
280Z28
I have noticed opening a solution with many projects is only slow if you're using ReSharper. Without it, the projects load nice and fast.
tsilb
A: 

I've gotten bit by the SECURE_SCL defaults in VS 2008, whereas in VS 2005 I was able to compile and hack with libraries really easily -- VS 2008 has proven much trickier.

Some links about that:

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=352699 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/137089/boostsignal-memory-access-error http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=352481 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/49330/vs-2005-2008-library-linking

+2  A: 

Its truly and deeply CRAPPY integration with SourceSafe. If I'm in SourceSafe itself and I want to check out a branched version of a file, no problem. But if I'm in Visual Studio, it completely scrozzes the destination folder settings for the entire branch and then checks out the wrong version on top of it. I not only have to manually uncheck and fix the files, but I also have to shut down VS and SS and manually delete the incorrect ss.ini folder settings to prevent SS from continuing to use the wrong branch folders. I've completely given up on ever letting Visual Studio check anything in/out of any branch other than the central development line.

If I had a nickel for every SourceSafe crash in VS, followed by that "You should run the Analyze utility, we can't be held responsible" message...
Kyralessa
I hope Microsoft spends exactly 0 time working on anything to do with SourceSafe. Let them spend their time making it easier for you to move off source safe.
Jay Bazuzi
Trouble is, Jay, a *lot* of companies use SourceSafe. You don't have to like it, but that's how it is. So with so many companies using it, it'd be nice if they'd fix the bugs in it.
Kyralessa
It's a sinking ship (SS) you should be planning your exit strategy.
jcollum
+71  A: 

I think the help system for Visual Studio is horribly, horribly broken. Between online and offline content, finding help on topic was much much better 10 years ago than it is now. Now, you often navigate a maze of help. There are likely many more help "pages", but it is so much more like being at the zoo.

Simplify! Make it work well! Is that too much to ask?

Related item: I know it is fixable, but I've had to correct this for other developers on my team: when other items are installed (SQL Server, for example), it can mess with the Visual Studio help system. It is correctable, but why so complicated? Just make it work.

pearcewg
The funny thing is that Microsoft programs used to have tooltip help that was actually useful. I guess it got too hard to make sure it was complete, so they switched to the current help system...which is slow and useless.
Kyralessa
Is there any way to hookup f1 to just googling the msdn site?
Martin Beckett
On the contrary, I really like the help system (offline help, not online). I think it's clear and well organized. However, the content itself is not always very helpful, particularly the samples for the most obscure members...
Thomas Levesque
"Is there any way to hookup f1 to just googling the msdn site?" In theory yes; try writing a macro and then assigning the F1 key to that macro.
Timwi
I have to agree, help has gotten worse with every edition of every Microsoft product. I too can remember 10 yeara ago when Help was helpful. Access 2 had better help than any Microsoft product today. SQL Server 2000 BOL is far easier to find the right information in than BOL for SQL Server 2008 etc.
HLGEM
+19  A: 

Windows Workflow Designer.

It's a crippled, one-legged, drunk, poisoned, hippopotamus carrying fifteen elephants slow. It's an absolute dog. It's really the shining example of why shifting portions of VS from native code to managed code was just a silly idea.

x0n
Haha, I LOL'ed! (And it is true.)
Eyvind
+1 for funny analogy. Will use that at work when things run slowly.
tsilb
A: 

Extremely slow refactoring, lack of refactoring features, slow symbol search, constant recompiling due to terrible non-incremental compiler, lack of occurrence highlighting, the list goes on. Visual Studio has a lot of catching up to do, a sad state considering how it used to be the best. I actually miss Eclipse.

Matt
This turned into a meme at one dev shop I worked at. The first time a guy encountered that dialog button that said "PERFORM THE REFACTORING," we laughed. From then on, periodically you'd hear someone shout it from their cube, usually in a faux-English accent. We were weird. And not English.
Nicholas Piasecki
followed by a maniacal laugh? "no Mr Bond, killing you would be too easy... Perform the Refactoring"
gbjbaanb
A: 

Output to OMF format so it can be used directly with digital mars tools which use OMF but visual studio uses COFF. I always use this tool because it is less buggy than digital mars's converter but if anyone knows how to output in OMF in MS visual studio please share your knowledge.

Tim Matthews
+9  A: 

The price! (Coupled with the fact that for most development tasks, realistically I don't have any alternatives).

Stewart Johnson
Are you aware of the free Express versions of VS? http://www.microsoft.com/Express/
Dave R.
For professional development the Express editions are not an alternative to the IDE (no plugins allowed, no visual assist X,, no resharper -> IDE is worthless). One can just go with the SDK and go with makefiles, emacs, et al, but if somebody who goes for this will, again, not use the express editions.
gimpf
Also note the free versions are not for commercial use. Big turnoff.
tsilb
You can indeed use the express editions for commercial use: http://www.microsoft.com/express/support/support-faq.aspx
In silico
+21  A: 

When I'm doing WPF, it crashes constantly. Three or four crashes per hour of work.

Kyralessa
Yes, the WPF designer still feels _very_ immature. My crash rate went _Way_ down when I just disabled it and work straight in xaml.
Greg D
I never work with the WPF designer, just XAML, and I still hate the "Toolbox Intializing" everytime I open a XAML file for the first time.
Christo
and it's SLOWWWWWWW
Mehrdad Afshari
I use Blend exclusively for designer, and VS for code. It's strange to have both apps open to work on one solution, but they are each absolutely stellar at their particular task.
280Z28
Indeed, I tend to use only the XAML editor, and not the designer. Blend is much quicker for rendering WPF and great for picking up external resource dictionaries correctly, but I'll end up editting the code directly than using either designer.
Will Eddins
And where the hll is wysiwyg support for xaml?
Pierreten
Agree with this completely. Really frustrating. Thankfully I haven't seen this problem in VS2010.
McAden
A: 

The weenies.

Ali A
loser
baeltazor
A: 

I'm not sure if this is Visual Studio or SourceGear or both but I'd say once every other day I have to rebind my two web projects in my solution to source control.

I wish I could work with SQL Server better inside the VS IDE and stay out of Management Studio.

I agree with what someone said a few posts up, no competition.

But if these are my biggest gripes then I'm doing okay.

A: 

Shift+alt+F10 for auto adding the relevant namespace, come on you could do better than that......

pablito
Try the ctrl+. (dot) combo.
Ant
niiiiice, I did not know that, 10x.
pablito
+2  A: 

Solution Explorer visibly repaints itself too often; for instance, every time you double click in the main editor. Seen on Vista (I don't recall seeing that in Windows XP).

Jan Zich
They've all done that, ever since VC6 which seemed 'solid'. The 2003+ ones are all flickery fragile.
gbjbaanb
+19  A: 

The performance is my main annoyance definitely.

Visual studio is the slowest desktop application I have.

Paco
There are a few places Visual Studio is slow, and I've tried to contact the dev team about fixing them. 1) If you have a large solution (dozens of projects and/or thousands of files), then opening/closing VS is slow. Double that if it's bound to source control. 2) IntelliSense is slow to update but shouldn't bog the IDE. 3) Different project types are different speeds. I'd need more info to narrow it down.
280Z28
I take it, you haven't used Eclipse then :P
shylent
Our solution contains more then 45 projects and more then 12 000 files. But with a serious PC, it opens very fast. Compiling is a snap and going from file to file is instantaneous. What kind of PC do you have ?
Sylvain
I guess I'm a bit more impatient than you are. My PC: 4 core intel, overclocked @3.2Ghz, 8GB ram, velociraptor HD
Paco
@Paco - you need an SSD. They are perfectly suited for dealing with lots of small file.
Alex
@Alex: Yep I want an SSD! But visual studio is still slow because it loads all the files separate and not in batch. Fast SSDs are only 2-3 times faster than the velociraptor (measured with my watch)
Paco
+202  A: 

The length of time the Help dialog takes to appear (locking up the IDE in the process)...

It is quicker for me to open Firefox, type what I'm after into Google, click on the relevant MSDN link, read my solution/search again and make a cup of tea, than it is for help to load.

Pondidum
I never NEVER use the built-in help. I use Google exclusively and usually placing 'msdn' in the search works just fine.
Anthony Mastrean
They absolutely need to re-architect the help. It's too slow to open (I remember VB 6's being instant), the tooltips don't offer enough info and there really needs to be a hierarchy that makes sense from wherever you jumped in. Also I wish it would remember my language filters!
Dave R.
I never use the built-in help, except when I accidentally click the little question mark on a dialog. Which used to create nice, relevant pop-up help; but now loads that HTML-based monstrosity.
Kyralessa
I always cringe when I accidentally hit F1. It's worthless.
jcollum
hm, usually works pretty fast here... also usually finds what I need as well...
Svish
Hitting F1 means ctrl+shift+esc for me here... It's faster to kill VS and load the whole thing again then to wait for help to open. Except if there are unsaved changes pending.. then I better go grab some coffee.
borisCallens
+1 it's soooo slooow. And when it does open it normally opens a completely unrelated topic, or an "information not found" message. I now always leave a Firefox running and google everything.
demoncodemonkey
This doesn't make much sense to me. Yeah, sure, it's slow, but we're talking 5-10 seconds vs. apparently minutes based on what you guys are saying. Are you all exagerating a bit? If you set VS to use online first then maybe it's a bit slower (20-30 seconds max).
Mystere Man
@Mystere Man. I can confirm with help set to local only, it still takes 1 minute to launch the help system for me. The dexplore.exe process takes 20 seconds of CPU (doing god knows what?) and 60MB of memory. I have VC, VB, C#, SqlServer, VSTO and Compact Framework technologies in my filter list.
Simon Brangwin
Hmm, never used this feature before, but when I try it now, the first time it took less than 5 seconds and times after that it's instant to open the window and a second to load the page. I don't get the complaint.
JulianR
I've permanently disabled F1. If I want to look for help I start it up in a separate process or just search in my browser.
Christo
I really prefer the VS2002/3 help system. I took a couple seconds but nowhere near the current version. And the *search* functionality actually worked at that time.
Mehrdad Afshari
REMAP that damn shortcut! ^^
Arnis L.
It probably has a lingering bad reputation. Just tried it (with "Debug.Print" highlighted) and it took only 7 or 8 seconds. However, (a) it's set to online help, not local, so I don't know if that makes a difference, and (b) it took me to the VS 2003 page (VS.71).
Kyralessa
Is there anyway to disable/remap f1 in vs just in case in a moment of weakness I try and use the online help?
Martin Beckett
You could bypass F1 altogether and a bookmarklet: http://www.shrinkrays.net/code-snippets/csharp/msdn-site-search-bookmarklet.aspx
Chris S
Everyone complaining about accidentally pressing the shortcut... Open Tools/Options, Keyboard, type "f1help", and change the shortcut from F1 to Alt+F1 or something. Problem solved! Now upvote this comment already, too few people know about this...
romkyns
It still does this!? I haven't used VS for 6 years! ;)
Umber Ferrule
Just leave the Help window open after the first F1. Subsequent F1's will be instantaneous.
I. J. Kennedy
personally i rebind f1 to Format document, far more useful
jk
A: 

I've got a solution reaching 70 projects and constantly growing (I've done a very small percentage of the project).

The toolbox doesn't remember my additions - Telerik and ASP.NET AJAX (you'd think the last one would be remembered by the IDE because it's all Microsoft!).

Html Designer crashes (or used to).

Got .NET 3.5/VS2008 SP1 and now my Silverlight projects cannot be loaded!

dotnetdev
A: 

IntelliSense hogging the up/down keys to scroll through search results.

So if you're typing some function call and want to move to the next line it's (esc)(down) instead of just (down).

OJW
A: 

When I moved from VS 2003 to VS 2005, it became much more difficult to chase down object properties in the debugger QuickWatch window. How should I know if it's "base" or "Non-Public" or "Static", and, more to the point, what do I care?

They also buried the code deeper into the folder tree, from "My Documents\Visual Studio Projects\MyApp" to "My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\MyApp\MyApp". How did that improve my experience?

SeaDrive
A: 

First of all... I love Visual Studio. I worked with it for years and it keeps getting better for every version.

I hate it when VS 2008 stops giving IntelliSense and when, for some unknown reason, it sets my keyboard settings to a different language, so 'special' keys like - and = become things like °, only in Visual Studio so a restart of it fixes the problem.

Another thing I think needs improvement is opening XAML files. I've changed the settings so it doesn't open in split mode but only shows me the actual XAML. Very often Visual Studio shuts down immediately. When restarting Visual Studio after that and opening in my project, that file is still open so Visual Studio shuts down again. After that Visual Studio doesn't load any files when opening the project. Very annoying.

Sorskoot
If your keyboard is anything like mine, the special keys thing is due to you hitting a specific escape sequence causing the keyboard driver (or some middleman program) to change the meaning of the keys silently. My HP laptop does this every time I accidentally hit ctrl-shift.
Sukasa
+6  A: 

I hate that VS2008 as well as the versions before do not get it managed to let the actual interface be usable, since it permanently locks up.

While building a project, it locks up, background compiling for intellisense works, but while actual compiling the code, it locks up the whole frontend.

Thats the most annoying thing with VS to me.

BeowulfOF
Yeah I find this truly shocking/appalling. I'm developing on a quad core box, and VS uses only a single core to build the solution, yet is completely unresponsive. How hard is it to run the build on a background thread...?
Greg Beech
280Z28
+7  A: 

When you add a reference, the dialog box seems to take forever to load - like minutes - because it's loading up every bloody .net, com, whatever library it can think of.

qui
No kidding... I'd rather have a "refresh" link or button that I can click if I have time to wait.
Chris
A: 

Simpler addon development would be really nice.

Chris
Take a look at DX Core http://www.devexpress.com/Downloads/Visual_Studio_Add-in/DXCore/
thijs
+166  A: 

Why does it take forever to launch the Add Reference dialog for a project?

Brian Rasmussen
It takes forever because it has to go out and look up all the registered references for COM and GAC assemblies. They could delay some of that until you click the appropriate tab, but it would still have to go out and do it.
Mystere Man
@Mystere Man - I know, but that doesn't make it any less of an annoyance.
Brian Rasmussen
Wait, you can interrupt the Help thing? How? I've never managed it.
jalf
You can interrupt it? Tell me how!
BenAlabaster
At least they could thread it so that i can use the tabs that load quickly (recently used references, project references).
Pondidum
Its also slow for all projects, not just C#...
Pondidum
A cache with the references that is updated when requested would be a solution I guess. And a separate thread for the look up could be another.
Erik Hellström
Why the heck can't it default to the "Projects" tab?
Paul Suart
thedorko, I've requested that: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=424148 They say they're not going to fix it in 2008, but if enough people complain, maybe they'll change their minds?
Kyralessa
Or when it doesn't even show the window when VS is not on the primary window, well for me anyway.Very annoying having to drag VS back to my primary window, just to add a reference...
PostMan
How often do you have to add a reference though? Surely you spend more time writing code than adding refs.
tomlog
I don't know why it takes so long to look up the cache - SharpDevelop uses the same cache and opens instantly.
Lucas Jones
tomlog, the issue isn't how often you have to do it; the issue is the way it destroys your flow every time you do it while you wait for the box to come up.
Kyralessa
+9013 on this one. Why doesn't it just cache the list, and then force *you* to refresh instead of it doing itself each time?
Chris S
This have been solved in VS2010 --> http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/10/29/add-reference-dialog-improvements-vs-2010-and-net-4-0-series.aspx
Carlos Muñoz
@Carlos. Well, sort of anyway. Now the default tab is Projects instead of .NET, so the dialog opens faster, but if you need something for the .NET tab, you still have to wait a bit. Let's call it an improvement over VS2008. Fortunately R# can insert references without ever opening the Add Reference dialog.
Brian Rasmussen
@Brian - actually the .NET tab now loads the items asynchronously
Richard Szalay
@Carlos I think "solved" is pretty optimistic. It's certainly better in VS2010, but still not ideal.
Matt Greer
+5  A: 

I don't know what causes it, but on occasions as I'm typing in an .aspx page the 'Error List' tab keeps jumping up and down like a f@cking jack russell terrier.

Otherwise I like it.

Jeff Keslinke
+2  A: 

There was a really nice FTP interface for deploying web site projects in 2005. Now they replaced it with something much worse.

Edit: my new biggest annoyances are:

  1. Sometimes windows like the solution explorer forget that they are supposed to autohide, and you have to tack and untack them again to make them go away.

  2. One of the windows from the bottom, such as the Output or Error List pops up for no good reason, such as when I save a file, although thankfully it usually realizes it should hide and goes away after a second.

strongopinions
I have that tack/untack problem in with the object explorer SSMS 2005 also.
StingyJack
A: 

Two of my biggest gripes:

  • 6.0 had a setting that let you see the shortcut keys on the tooltips (very useful in trying to learn a new keyboard shortcut for often used features); 2005/2008 doesn't. (Thanks to SLax for the comment on how to turn on that feature. This isn't a problem now.)
  • 6.0 let you put toolbars anywhere, even in between the workspace window and the code window (next to the separator bar); 2005/2008 doesn't.

On thing that I really like:

  • The class view window -- much more useful in 2005/2008 than it was in 6.0.

Edit Thanks to SLaks's comment, the first gripe is no longer an issue. However, this is:

  • The Class Wizard in 6.0 let you easily add handlers for pretty much any message you wanted on the dialogue as well as its controls. I find that the Class Wizard in 2005/2008 is much more restrictive and, therefor, much less flexible. It doesn't even let you add event handlers for the dialogue itself for God's sake! (Being lazy, I found it very useful to have the wizard put the stubs in for OnInitDialog(), etc. for me.)
RobH
In Customize Toolbars, you can check Show Shortcut Keys in ScreenTips
SLaks
+4  A: 

When designing windows forms with lots of controls I'll first design the form with all the controls and then go back and rename all the controls prior to wiring anything up. I'm very careful to click one time with my mouse on each control I am renaming, however VS 2008 (and previous versions) often interprets a double click -- which throws me into the code behind thinking I want to wire up an event handler. This is highly annoying and wastes a tremendous amount of my time clicking to get out of the code behind. The problem becomes exponentially worse with forms containing many controls. Why in the heck isn't there an option to disable auto-wireup (at least temporarily)? I can't be the first windows developer to encounter this problem.

This problem has clearly linear complexity not the exponential as you wrote :)
Piotr Dobrogost
Use the document outline window, it will list all the controls and you can right-click -> rename... much easier. Plus it won't trigger the auto-wireup if you double left click.
pezi_pink_squirrel
or press F2 to rename the selected item in the document outline
Pondidum
+9  A: 

My biggest annoyance, is when intellisense pops up, and steals what I was trying to type.. That, and when intellisense decides to get in the way of what I was writing with a big window, and I have to click elsewhere to get it to leave me alone so I can see what I was writing.

Alex Fort
What is even worse is when the studio thinks it's smarter than you and either replaces what you had at the right of your caret or it completes the wrong type.
Chris
Not sure if this will help you, but: Hold down Ctrl - the Intellisense window and some other tooltips will become partially transparent.
Thanatos
@Thanatos: that was so handy I added it to VS2005 as one piece of my free VS add-in SamTools: http://wiki.pixelminegames.com/index.php?title=Tools:SamTools:Features
280Z28
+1 especially for the T of: private T MyMethod
Benjol
+1  A: 

Design View!

Asmussen
LOL. Design view for `Component`s is a pain.
280Z28
+10  A: 

If searching for text within a file that has regions, it's considered hidden text. One must STILL remember to check Find options->Search hidden text. Otherwise one will not find what they're looking for.

Scott Saad
This is so irritating.
cdmckay
Why not just check it once and always keep it checked?
Timwi
Yes, this is ultimately what one has to do. Shouldn't it just be defaulted?
Scott Saad
A: 

It's sad but I still need to work with 1.1. So I need two versions of VS installed.

Cadoo
+2  A: 

I would really like to be able to copy references from one project to another.

Especially since the add references dialog takes forever to load.

chris
PowerCommands has that, and lots of other juicy stuff http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/PowerCommands
Benjol
CoolCommands has this too and also has the 'Locate in Solution Explorer' feature I can't seem to live without.
Kevin Pullin
+1  A: 

Crashes are the biggest pain... it just breaks your flow of thoughts and decreases productivity way too much.

thijs
Indeed it seem to crash more than VS2005
shoosh
A: 
  • Gradient bars - If I want 5% of the screen to be filled with a gradient bar I can create my own in photoshop. I gathered this is something they payed attention to with VS2010
  • As mentioned before - total stagnation of C++ project.
  • Inflating NCB files - It seems this has been around from VC6.0
shoosh
A: 

Projects are incorrectly ordered when placed in Solution Folders.

UPDATE Apparently fixed now, though I guess I'll have to wait for VS2010.

Benjol
+2  A: 

The big sleep ...

Loading projects (medium sized, up to 10 projects in a solution) it takes minutes to load the solution and display the files left open last time on a good equipped pc (4gb ram, dual core ~3ghz). And it's not just on one pc...

Anyone else has this phenomen?

Sascha
If you don't use some project you can unload them (right-click on the project Unload Project). You can also try to use a SSD instead of classic HDD.
Nicolas Dorier
@Sascha: Check my comments on the first page for an explanation of why this happens.
280Z28
Even At Compile Time...
Elijah Glover
+2  A: 

No incremental build support. At all.

See Eclipse for how it should be done: Ctrl+S, and a second later I can run. Compare to VS 2008: save, and it just sits there. F5 and I have to wait 5 minutes (more, if Code Analysis is on) for it to finally cough up that class Foo does not implement method Bar from interface IFoo. Then I have to wait another 5 minutes for it to stop building the rest of the projects, because it DOES NOT stop building by default when it hits an error.

Microsoft did not realize that there is a huge difference between a build tool for a build server and a build tool in an IDE (batch vs interactive application).

Kurt Schelfthout
I know, I could easily get better performance by maintaining makefiles and adding a button to call make/msbuild.
Joshua
Cannot edit comments -- that is, make calling msbuild for each project that is out of date
Joshua
A: 

When having a Setup & Deployment project in your solution, you can't unload it by right-clicking it in the solution explorer (there's no "Unload Project" option like there should be).

You have to either go to the top menu bar and do it from there or select another project with it and unload them both.

Idan K
+1  A: 

In Visual Web Developer / Design View

Sometimes clicking a control and changing its properties does not work: The Properties window becomes "out of sync", still linked to the previously-selected-control.

Switching to Source view then back to Design view solves this, but is an annoyance.

benrwb
A: 
  1. Cut/Copy line
  2. shift+del to tidy up some whitespace
  3. Go to where you to relocate the line
  4. ctrl+v and it pastes the removed line (usually blank) rather than the original!
Well, that's because shift+del is the Cut shortcut, not DeleteLine. If you cut without a selection, you cut the entire line, hence it looks like DeleteLine. You can change it, though! There is a real DeleteLine command in VS, too.
Sander
Ctrl+Shift+L is the default key for deleting a line. More importantly, Ctrl+Shift+V (multiple times) cycles the clipboard ring. I wanted to run in circles eating candy bars when I stumbled on that by accident.
280Z28
+1  A: 

UI designer is targeted for C# and VB and not C++.
All code it generates for given form is put in a single file without separation on header and source files.
C++ Builder has this for years...

I'm pissed off on M$ how they treat C++ and it's users; no respect at all.
I'm sure they will regret this. The sooner the better.

Piotr Dobrogost
The C++ team is frustrated as well. Their codebase is/was very old and unmaintainable, where the newer language services were better written. Add on the complexity of the language itself and they've had a nightmare of a time producing "generally acceptable" results. I believe they treat their users with a "do you have any idea how hard this is?" and having worked on C++ IntelliSense functionality I understand exactly where they're coming from. :)
280Z28
+6  A: 

The time it takes to shutdown Visual studio. Even with small project it sometimes takes very long time, sometimes so long that I reside to force it with task manager. I can't figure out why, there is obviously a lot of disk activity but I can't figure out the reason to why it should save so much.

TT
This drives me crazy!
johnc
Hell yes. We switched AV products lately and it seems to be a bit better, but still gets "locked up" when closing more than one instance at a time (File contention for NTUSER.DAT.LOG).
StingyJack
Not only that, but a program that needs to do a lot of work on shutdown is not very resilient to crashes or "end process". You have to wonder what it's doing that's so important that won't get done in a crash.
Jon
A: 

The macro recorder is just so slow it hurts. I remember in MSVC 6, it was lightning fast. Now, it feels like the whole IDE is in molasses when you record. I don't know what they have done to it, but it's a shame.

Joce
A: 

I'd like it to be able to export build files to other platforms - or at least provide a plug-in ability to do that.

Basically I want it to be its own CMake.

Tim
Why don't you use use CMake?
Tom
I'd rather not have a meta-project - I'd prefer to have just the "real" makefile and then build off that. With CMake (As I understand it) I have to propagate all my changes from the visual studio project files back to cmake. I build and do all my work in Visual Studio - it is an extra step or two to go back to make those changes into CMake and then to re-generate the visual studio projects. I am looking at CMake for our cross platform needs, but it sure would be nice if there was a cross platform IDE or some plugin for VC++ that handled that.
Tim
+7  A: 

There is no shortcut for switching between source and header files in C++.
That is just ridiculous...
C++ Builder has it from years (and QT Creator has this feature as well).

Piotr Dobrogost
Get Visual Assist X. I can't use VS for C++ without it anymore.
Simon H.
A: 

Two complaints:

  • Custom build rules are source-based, instead of target-based, and they operate by file extension. That means if I want to add a custom step (such as unit-test boilerplate generation for CxxTest), I need to create a new type of file, foo.unit and define a rule that operates on *.unit files.

  • Refusal to support C99 features. I want my <stdint.h>, <inttypes.h>. I know not a lot of people use C anymore, but C99 headers are at least accessible from C++, and I hate resorting to third-party projects for something like this.

Tom
A: 

I think some of the simple features included in Visual Assist should make its way into Visual Studio; for example "go to file", and fast switch between .h and .cpp file.

Viktor Sehr
Ctrl+Alt+F allows rapid file navigation when you have SamTools installed: http://wiki.pixelminegames.com/index.php?title=Tools:SamTools:Features
280Z28
A: 

The time it takes to delete a single damn file out of your project the first time you run a delete command. Seriously, c'mon!

womp
I wonder if it's tied to the Windows Recycle Bin. I've noticed that after a reboot, it takes a year or two to recycle the first file I delete.
Kyralessa
A: 

Debug CRT Deployment: Installing the debug C runtime (msvcr90d.dll) on test systems is far more complicated than it needs to be. I usually would prefer to use a lighter weight debugger, and adding Visual Studio 2008 to test system images takes a lot more space and imaging time.

  • Microsoft does not distribute a standalone installer for the debug CRT. (However, it is possible to create a debug CRT installer using Visual Studio.)
  • Copying the debug CRT to %SystemRoot%\system32 does not work, due to WinSxS (except on Windows 2000).
  • Copying the debug CRT to your application's directory (a.k.a. xcopy deployment) works, assuming that you are debugging an application that has its own directory. This does not work if you're debugging a DLL installed in %SystemRoot%\system32.
bk1e
There's a very good reason for there not being a redistributable for the Debug CRT; i.e. You're not licensed to.
Rowland Shaw
Right, and I don't want to redistribute the debug CRT to customers. I just wish that deploying it on internal test machines was as convenient with Visual Studio 2008 as it was with Visual Studio .NET 2003. And I realize that this wish will never be fulfilled. :)
bk1e
A: 
  • It simply can't handle editing any file acceptably if it's more than about 2K lines long on my machine. Constant waits and lockups even when just typing in new lines of code! VS.NET 2003 did not have this issue, 2005/2008 have introduced it.
  • The huge amount of time it takes to open/shut solutions. Our solutions only have 10 projects and maybe 20-30KLOC total, and it's still several minutes to open it all up!
  • It never remembers that I want SonicFileFinder OPEN and the Properties window CLOSED. Almost every time I open up a solution it gets it the wrong way around...
  • It can't debug C# server code and JS client code in the same instance.
  • When debugging JS client code, you can't make changes and keep going without detaching and reattaching.
  • Intellisense is rubbish for JavaScript.
  • ASP/ASPX editing is pretty rubbish, features-wise. It always uses spaces instead of tabs, horrible mangles tags/layout, and can't rollup tags/functions/sections.
  • Why does it take so long to switch between Design and Source mode? And stop messing up all my markup when I go into Design.
Coxy
For the first item, what file type? Every language is managed by its own language service, which is in turn responsible for the performance problems.
280Z28
In my recent experience, plain old C Sharp .cs files. The one for our data layer is 10865 characters long.I've also run into it with long .sql files, but that's in the past so I can't say much about what cause it. I do remember it being a very long script that created dozens of tables and stored procedures, though.
Coxy
10865 lines long, not characters. :)
Coxy
+3  A: 

No intuitive way to "Refresh" the .dbml file when the underlying SQL tables/sproc are changed.

iphonedevpinoy
I seriously hope they fix this in 2010. This is so frustrating when entity framework has it!
Alex
there are 3rd party solutions to that, e.g. http://huagati.com/dbmltools/
KristoferA - Huagati.com
+3  A: 

1 Performance.. Start-up, loading help (I'm not pressing F1, I'm not stupid).

Seriously, would use Excel if it had the start-up time of Visual Studio? It doesn't matter if i have a 80k or 8MB XLS file, it opens fast, saves fast and is generally a pleasure to use.

2 Inconsistent search options, find, find in files, etc. Pick one!

4 If you create a blank solution, then add a project to it, the project appears at the top of the hierarchy, even though it's not. If you add another project, the solution reappears at the top of the hierarchy, and then shows the two projects below it, so irritating. Most of us create solution folders to get around this annoyance.

5 Poor setup. Why is the only difference between complete and typical install the 64 bit compilers?

Chris
or you could set the always show solution node option to on?
Pondidum
@Andy: Wow, I just found that setting, I had no idea it existed.
Chris
A: 
  • No closing buttons on tabs
  • Easier SVN integration
jao
Just do a middle click on the tab.
Stecy
@Stecy, I actually didn't know that. :) (I use Ctrl+W and Ctrl+Shift+W anyway, but it's still neat to know.)
280Z28
+2  A: 

You can't do a textual search in the toolbox, the properties window (in non-WPF projects) or the add references dialog.

rein
+2  A: 

The time it takes to upgrade VS 2008 to SP1!

It takes about 90 minutes on my machine.

rein
VS2005 SP1 was worse. Much, much, much worse.
280Z28
So you do this often? :)
Benjol
Quite often. About once a week. Sucks to have multiple test machines.
rein
Takes just as long to apply a hotfix from Windows Update, which happens quite often...
Christian Hayter
+1  A: 

That you can't select the event handlers for controls from the code-behind for C#.

Also the fact that you have to be in design mode to even get the Event Handler options in the ascx or aspx for C#. Why can't that option just be available in source mode?

Alex
A: 

C++ Intellisense constantly consuming ALL available processor cycles. OK, it may be in a low priority backgroud thread, but it still burns cycles and does slow other stuff down. Not to mention - it makes my laptop run really hot!

Colin Desmond
A: 

I've joined the dark side, but the Solution Explorer still burns my eyes.

paul
+2  A: 
  1. Add reference dialog taking forever to load the first time round
  2. Unstable WPF designer (though applying the KB958017 hotfix does seem to improve this)
  3. Badly designed Unhandled Exception dialog. They put a help link where I would actually want to view the exception in greater detail.
jumpinjackie
#3 all the way. I sometimes forget and click that "Get general help for this exception" and get a stupid page telling me what an exception is. I'll grant that it says *general* help, but the box it's in says Troubleshooting tips, and yet it doesn't offer a single genuinely useful troubleshooting tip. The View Detail link, meanwhile, is down at the bottom and kind of a pain to use, because you still have to drill way down into the exception and its inner exceptions. Why can't we just have a dialog that shows ToString on the exception?
Kyralessa
Here's a Connect suggestion I've opened about #3. If you agree with it, vote it up and/or comment on the issue at Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=520238
Kyralessa
A: 

I don't know if it's my biggest annoyance, but it really bugs me how many long-running operations are either modal or just cause the UI to lock up. Now I'm forced to use TFS which is a DOG, and causes lots of little glitches in UI responsiveness, but at least I understand why some of those need to prevent you from interacting for a bit.

I really don't understand why opening help need to tie up the IDE while Document Explorer takes what seems like hours to update for new content. Or why loading the available tests for a large project needs to lock up the whole IDE. There's a little progress bar on the Test View tab, which makes me think that they tried to make this more localized and just couldn't get it to work or something. I guess I need a faster machine or something.

But my biggest annoyance is TFS and it's remarkably painful integration. Not the little glitches I mention above, but the incredible, across the board, immense crappiness of this POS. I can't express in words how much I hate this thing.

Mr. Putty
+8  A: 

Overall, I think Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 are fantastic IDEs. But the one thing that gets me time and time again is accidentally dragging and dropping files in the Solution Explorer. Maybe I'm trying to work too quickly, but there really needs to be an "Undo file move" or something along those lines.

ReadySquid
I've been bitten by this a few times. :o
280Z28
There's a Connect issue about this; vote it up and maybe it'll get fixed: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=517151
Kyralessa
+10  A: 

The biggest annoyance is when you open a project that was built in another version of VS it has to convert. It should be able to open any project in read-only mode for browsing.

I also don't like how it implies you can never go back - you can if you edit the proj files. This should all be more transparent and simpler.

Second annoyance is when it tells you it is going to check files out of source control when opening a solution especially since I do not use source control through the IDE and often I'm looking at open source software for read-only.

Maggie
A: 

The folks over at Coding Horror gave an example of a Visual Studio macro for collapsing to definitions but expanding macros. The following was given by Kyralessa in a comment:

Sub CollapseToDefinitionsButExpandAllRegions()
  DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.CollapsetoDefinitions")
  DTE.SuppressUI = True
  Dim objSelection As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection
  objSelection.StartOfDocument()
  Do While objSelection.FindText("#region", vsFindOptions.vsFindOptionsMatchInHiddenText)
  Loop
  objSelection.StartOfDocument()
  DTE.SuppressUI = False
End Sub

This code works fine when you execute it as a regular macro, but I would prefer it to happen automatically when I open a document.

I tried taking this code and working it into an EnvironmentEvent, but without much luck. When I try debugging the macro, the debugger gets to the ExecuteCommand line and then does not return to the subroutine. It also doesn't collapse to definitions (Edit > Outlining > Collapse to Definitions). Here's my EnvironmentEvent subroutine, for anyone to poke at:

Public Sub documentEvents_DocumentOpened(ByVal Document As EnvDTE.Document) Handles DocumentEvents.DocumentOpened
    ' Thanks to http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001147.html
    Document.DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.CollapsetoDefinitions")
    'DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.CollapsetoDefinitions")
    DTE.SuppressUI = True
    Dim objSelection As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection
    objSelection.StartOfDocument()
    Do While objSelection.FindText("#region", vsFindOptions.vsFindOptionsMatchInHiddenText)
    Loop
    objSelection.StartOfDocument()
    DTE.SuppressUI = False
End Sub

So beyond trying to offer some potentially useful region-expanding code, I'd also like to register that this is way too much pain to go through just to collapse methods but expand regions when opening a file. Really, VS? That can't just be a preference somewhere?

Sarah Vessels
Of course, the *real* solution is to quit using regions.
Kyralessa
@Kyralessa: I agree, but some code I have to work with includes regions. While I don't necessarily want to remove other people's regions willy-nilly, I don't want to suffer through them myself.
Sarah Vessels
A: 

Not being able to add snippets for other languages than MS supported ones (for example, while using Intel's fortran compiler).

ldigas
That's a feature handled by the language service. We support UnrealScript snippets in our product that work the same way as other snippets.
280Z28
A: 

The fact that the icon colors are almost identical to Chrome, and they're right next to each other in my quicklaunch bar.

In other words, nothing that hasn't been mentioned yet.

Shadow
A: 

That you cannot create an empty solution inside an existing folder. VS 2008 always creates a new folder whenever you create an empty solution.

yanong_banikanhon
+1  A: 

Ctrl+W closes the current tab in almost every tabbed application I use ...except VS. grr

Dinah
You can add the keyboard shortcut
Kamarey
Or use this without modifying anything: alt+f=>alt+c
Arnis L.
I always customize my keyboard shortcuts to have Ctrl+W do this (and to have Ctrl+Shift+W close all the tabs). The commands to customize are Window.CloseDocumentWindow and Window.CloseAllDocuments.
Kyralessa
A: 

An ability to quickly find and open files. In a solution with lots of projects it takes too much time to find and open the file you want. I know about Find bar + ">of Filename...", and this helps a lot, but still it takes too much time...

Kamarey
A: 

Being able to collapse/expand JavaScript code when editing wouldn`t have been that hard for Microsoft to implement, would it?

BTW, what JS editor offers VS integration and collapses/expand JavaScript?

Federico Caldas (TeamDotNet)

+2  A: 

The fact that the regular expression syntax in the Find/Replace dialog (used in the IDE itself) is different from the regular expression syntax used by the Regex class (used in programs you write).

Kyralessa
I've opened a Connect suggestion about this: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/573042
Kyralessa
+2  A: 

Creating new Projects and Solutions is a mess.

Various menu items lead to dead ends (e.g. 'Create Project from Existing Code"... but there is no option to create a web application).

Why can't we do File->New->Solution, save the solution where we want it, then add projects to it?

Files get auto saved all over the place and its never clear what is actually going on.

cbp
A: 

I find the VS IDE very unreliable. It stuffs up my resources. I add images to the tollbar (lots of them) and a few days later, they're all gone. The references are there but some how it manages to stuff it up and then I have to go and add all the images again, double-click on them all all over again and re-paste the code all over again. Worst IDE known to mankind.

baeltazor
A: 

"Could not load file or assembly xxxxxx" when the assembly is f**** right there!

cbp
+2  A: 
Vulcan Eager
Well, that's what you get for using SourceSafe...oh wait, you're not using SourceSafe. And yet they still use the same stupid dialog they used with SourceSafe.
Kyralessa
A: 
  1. If any projects, which are under source control, get updated, VS keeps on popping up the dialog asking me whether I want to reload the project for each project. There is no option to reload automatically or a "Reload All" button in the dialog.

  2. IronPython is developed by Microsoft and there is practically zero support on Visual Studio. (Yes they do have something, but that is not under active development and is for an older version of IPy)

  3. Sometimes while debugging, if I do things like "Open Containing Folder" on a file, things just freeze.

  4. There is no direct way to manually edit project files -- I have to unload the project and then do an "Edit Project".

Rohit
A: 

Lack of incremental compilation ala eclipse in the c# mode. I miss seeing the mistakes before compiling. Always hitting the compile button. It's become a muscle memory thing.

jskaggz
SP1 did add this!
Hans Kesting
A: 

I hate the way that you can't remove items from the "Recent Projects" list without going into the registry, or moving/deleting the project. I make throwaway projects often, and it's annoying when they push your real projects off the bottom of the list.

Iain Galloway
Finally, at long last, in VS 2010 there's a little X next to them so you can remove them.
Kyralessa
Remove them *or* pin them! *bliss*
Iain Galloway
A: 

When changing values on a control in designer mode, it takes forever to find the thing you want to change. To make this even more annoying when your doing WPF they have a easy search field on top of the properties window making finding what you wanna change simple.

EKS
+1  A: 

Most of my pet peeves have been mentioned already, but here's another one:

Visual Studio includes lots of great options for controlling Code Formatting, but all of those options are global (across all solutions). One thing I really miss from Eclipse is being able to define different Code Formatting for different projects. In particular, this is important when you're working on different projects with different teams, and each team has its own quirks in coding standards.

Daniel Pryden
I think Resharper does that
Yurik
A: 

A few times a year, "Find in Files" fails with the message : "No files were found to look in." The inexplicable solution is to press Ctrl+ScrLk . This occurs in VS 2008, and I think earlier versions.

Phillip Ngan
+2  A: 

It lacks a "Reload all" command, when you use source control and make an update before shutting down visual studio. Then sometimes you have to click "Reload" almost as many times as how many projects you have. Or press ctrl-alt-del and kill VS (which is almost always faster)!

Darjan
A: 

Javascript debugging is forced on in Internet Explorer with no way to switch it off. Which results in all sorts of (anonymous) javascript blocks to flicker on and off as solution items.

Hans Kesting
+1  A: 

When you have multiple instances open and change preferences, you have to be careful in what order you close all instances, or you loose the changes.

Hans Kesting
A: 

When stopping the debugger, the computer hangs for up minutes at a time, while God Knows What is going on.

reverendlarry
+3  A: 

Single biggest annoyance, particularly given how easy it would be for MS to fix: the fact that there is no simple option to make compilations abort on the first project which contains errors.

Given how unresponsive the IDE becomes during a compilation, it's a real pain to have to attempt to switch to the output tab, in order to hit CTL-Break so that you can stop a compilation once you notice that you've got compile errors on a project.

I know that there are 'work-arounds' that IIRC, involve custom build steps etc., but for something so darn simple I shouldn't have to jump through PIA hoops in order to change the behavior to what I would argue should most likely be the default behavior.

Argh.

Having said that, there's a lot I do like about VS.

One more area that it must be said is problematic is the WPF designer support. As has been commented by others it's very buggy. For me this has been exacerbated by having a couple of more unusual system configuration items, and the difficulty finding information on hotfixes: I have had to install one hotfix to VS to solve 64bit windows issues, and have had to install Silverlight 2 tools for VS2008 SP1 - so that it's compatible with Blend 3 behaviors (even though I'm not using Silverlight!).

Phil
A: 
  1. Can't put two source codes window from two projects side by side if I don't open one from the other instance of VS or create a solution file containing the two projects. If I put two VS window side by side, then tool bar button area, menu areas take too much space.

  2. Can't copy files in a project when the project is opened with VS. Some files are locked and can't be copied. This is weird. Copying is to "read". Why "read" is not possible?

JongAm Park
+2  A: 

My favorites:

  • No way to change compiler settings (such as "Treat warnings as error" -setting) for all projects in the Solution at once.
  • "Find all references" sometimes only searches from the compilation unit that the symbol is defined in, not from the whole project/Solution.
  • Project settings dialog is REALLY hairy and messy.
  • No search functionality in Options dialog (similar to Eclipse's Preferences search)
  • Key bindings are presented by some API names they map to, such as Edit.DoThis or Window.Something, instead of logical, descriptive names such as "Close Window", "Delete current line" (again, Eclipse has this one Right) Moreover, the list of commands/bindings is long as hell, but the window they're shown in, is only four lines and the dialog is of fixed-size.
  • Broken regular expression implementation (ill use of < and >, no support for word-boundary operator, messy :fubar constructs, etc.)
  • No move line/block up/down/whatever-direction in editor (except for "Transpose line", which only moves line down)
  • No semantic highlighting (This is REALLY annoying)
  • IntelliSense doesn't quite sense a thing when e.g. hovering the mouse cursor on some variable. It just shows something like "__unknown_type_something foo::bar" (at least for C code)
  • Lack of user defined types' highlighting (Stabbing/hard coding your own types into some usertypes.dat/whatever that is only loaded when the IDE starts doesn't count. These should be definable at least per-project basis or even better if IntelliSense was smart enough to parse them on-the-fly, as Eclipse does)
  • Syntax highlight should be configurable on per-language and per-perspective (editing/debugging/whatever) basis. When I'm writing C or C++, I don't want to see HTML/SQL/whatnot items in the syntax items list. Debugger-specific items should also in a separate list.
  • Build output is full of crap, mostly, and the actual information, such as errors & warnings are buried deep under that. Syntax coloring (different colors for commands, errors & warnings etc.) and selection highlight are missing too.
  • No way to configure automagic indentation (like how case statements should be indented inside a switch block)
  • Match ranges are not highlighted in Search results (partial-line matches)
  • Ambiguous symbol resolving on "Goto definition": instead of asking every time, you only get asked once, and that's it.
RE: Build Output - highlighting warnings/errors - VSCommands can do that: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/d491911d-97f3-4cf6-87b0-6a2882120acf + it highlights warnings in Debug Output and matched text in Search results.
jarek
A: 

The javascript editor does not remember your preferences for formatting. I'm a "brace at the end of the opening line" kinda guy, but I work where the brace needs to be on its own line. I like that in VS I can just type the way I've conditioned myself and VS will fix it for me.

Except the javascript editor. It forgets the settings periodically, and next thing I know I diff my changes and 80% of the file has changed because the braces all moved. So annoying!

Matt Greer
A: 

When highlighting gets "sticky" and does not want to start selecting from your cursor. Only way to correct it is by restarting. Very annoying....

Pat
A: 

My three:

  • The project references box takes a long time to display (on an AD domain it seems)
  • The toolbox is the same
  • The search box. I'd much prefer a firefox style search
Chris S
Press Ctrl+I for a Firefox-style search.
SLaks
A: 

A simple to fix but very annoying thing is the QuickWatch Window. It never remembers it's column slider positions so I always have to slide the colums into view every time I open the QuickWatch. The default settings of are pretty bad. The column that displays the Type of the Object is out of view. A quick fix would be a better default. Remembering where I put them would be luxurious but is not a must.

Paul Sinnema
A: 

In the XAML editor, alt-tab somewhere else, alt-tab back and it's moved your cursor to the beginning of the control! so frustrating

baron
+1  A: 

Trying to navigate the visualization of objects in the debugger.

Here's this TEENY plus sign, followed by myriad other plus signs, and damn you to heck if you don't move the mouse precisely as required. You have to HOVER the mouse, and probably click the object, to get the visualization started; there's no keyboard shortcut. There's no way to use the keyboard AFAIK (PLEASE tell me, if there is) for dropping the visualization menu so you can select from text or XML or HTML.

The labels are obscure. You get into base type fugues, recursing down base type to base type, and sometimes there's never any data to reward your spelunking. If you're looking at a lot of data, like members of a dictionary, there's no way to capture that data.

I'd like to be able to put the cursor on an object and enter Ctrl-E + Ctrl-D (for ExplicateData) -- to open a window where ALL of the data is expanded, the parent-child relationships shown via indentation, with the option to mark bits as "favorites" that are placed in a window at the top. Save the favorites in the SUO file. Permit opening or closing blocks using the usual VS shortcuts, and save the open/closed state in the SUO. Select all or part of the data and click the alternate tabs at the top to see the data as XML or HTML.

hoytster
A: 

Completely Uninstalling It for:

  1. Repairing a problem with corrupt files
  2. Installing a new version of Visual Studio
  3. Simply getting rid of it

Without a doubt the worst program when it comes to uninstalling as it has literally taken over your system completely and has it's garbage laying everywhere from registry to my documents to your drive. You have to uninstall several programs and even then it is not completely removed. Horrible, especially coming from a company like Microsoft who own the OS as well.

Samaursa
A: 

That sometimes the C++ rebuild dependencies stop working. I've seen this with VS2005 & VS2008 on different projects at different companies. Sometimes changing a header file will not cause all the cpp files that include it to be recompiled and link errors result. Some combination of deleting .idb, .obj files will fix it, or do a rebuild all of the solution but that can take a long time.

danio
A: 

Wow, 4 pages of responses and nobody has mentioned "Copy Web Site"?

In VS2005 it worked as fast as any other file-synchronization utility. In VS2008, a Remote Source located on a network share takes at least 10 seconds just to list the file names if there are more than ~5 files in the directory.

J. Farray