managing panel and window location in visual studio 2013 - visual-studio-2012

I have been having an issue since VS 2012 (currently using 2013) that the panels and windows are constantly all over the place. I have worked with VS for years and this hasn't ever been an issue. I know this has something to do with the .vssettings file but I really don't want to go farting around with it.
I would like something like VSWindowManager PowerToy however that doesn't seem to have been updated since 2006.
Does anyone know how to stabilize the location of windows in panels in VS 2013?
Thanks

There is a VS extension called Layouts O Rama I have been using it for about a week now. and I am very pleased with it, it seems to have calmed down all the window madness I was experiencing with various windows coming up all over creation.
It can be installed using the extension manager Tools > Extensions and updates.

Related

Visual Studio regularly freezes running Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Host.exe

Background
I maintain several web sites that are Visual Studio "Web Site Projects".
Problem
I've found that with a couple of these projects, Visual Studio regularly freezes while I'm working on the code. This doesn't happen for some of the web site projects, and I haven't seen it happen on any Web Application projects.
Symptoms
Each time it freezes, it takes about half a minute before I can use it again.
During a freeze, Windows Task Manager reports that Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Host.exe is maxing out one of the CPU cores.
Steps to Reproduce
Open a .cs file under the App_Code directory.
Make a change to the file.
Save the file.
Navigate somewhere else (eg switch tab, close the file, open different program in Windows).
Navigate back to the file (eg switch tab to it, open it, or go back to Visual Studio).
Other actions that sometimes seem to trigger the problem:
"Go to definition"
Opening a file
Previewing a file
Closing a file
Using a refactoring
"Find usages"
What I've Tried
Both Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2015
Changing the website project's build action
Disabling "Build Web site as part of solution"
Deleting web references and the Bin folder seems to minimise the problem, but obviously this breaks the web site. Maybe web site projects experience this problem when they contain a lot of C# code other than code-behind files?
Similar problems
I found the following potentially-related problems using Google, but none of them seemed to contain a workaround or solution.
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Host.exe Time Theft
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Host.exe
Visual Studio 2012 freezes for approximately 30 seconds after every build
I noticed that the problem happened less often when I suspended ReSharper.
The problem still happened occasionally when editing classes under App_Code, but restarting Visual Studio worked around it.
I was facing a similar problem. A single Web application project with dozens of class libraries, migrated over from VS 2010 into VS 2013.
I was able to solve my problem by disabling the "Hosting Process" option:
To disable the hosting process
Open an executable project in Visual Studio. Projects that do not
produce executables (for example, class library or service projects)
do not have this option.
On the Project menu, click Properties.
Click the Debug tab.
Clear the Enable the Visual Studio hosting process check box.
Full details on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms185330.aspx
Another option for people experiencing this on old web applications that don't have the properties page in the accepted answer above.
Disable "Allow this precompiled site to be updatable".
Open Site/Solution
Right click and view Property Pages
Go to MSBuild Options
Uncheck "Allow this precompiled site to be updatable"
This worked for me.
This problem stopped happening when the Web Site project was converted into a Web Application project.
Not an easy solution, but it did stop the problem.
They symptoms in the question of this post sound exactly like the nightmares I just had today:
Other actions that sometimes seem to trigger the problem:
"Go to definition"
Opening a file
Previewing a file
Closing a file
Using a refactoring "Find usages"
Plus intellisense wasn't working (even with CTRL + J) and
'Peek definition' was hanging as well.
I had to keep task killing visual studio (both 2015 and 2017).
My fix was to go into the project that I was having problems with, open the 'Package Manager Console' and uninstall and re-install the 'DotNetCompilerPlatform'
uninstall-package Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform
and then
install-package Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform
So far every problem I was encountering has not resurfaced (but this was just today so still need to give it time).
UPDATE:
It started creeping back again. I noticed also that whomever had installed to the solution had only done it to two of the various projects. Uninstalling the compiler platform (which means using the compilers that came with Visual Studio) has made life sane again.

Visual Studio 2012 Crashes on opening designer for 1 specific windows form

I'm currently working on a project. This project is shared by teamfoundation between colleagues.
I need to change some things in a windows form. But when i open the windows form in the designer, Visual Studio 2012 crashes and does a restart. It gives no errors, ontly that Visual Studio has stopped working. This problem only exist with this specific windows form.
With the same build on a computer of a colleague, it can be opened. My OS is windows 8(64bit) and the OS of the colleague is windows 7 (64bit).
Does this sound familiar to anyone, or is there a way to find errorlogs so i can see some more information?
Thank you in advance!
If you need more information, please let me know!
I'm experiencing the same issue with both VS2010 and VS2012. I found that if I do any form designer work in a VS instance, it is corrupting the designer file when it rewrites it. Currently, my work-around is to do the form designer work using VS2005 then compiling using VS2012. This is not my permanent solution but it's all I have so far. Good luck!

Visual Studio 2012 + Resharper 7.1 = slooooow, what to do?

I used to have R# 6 with VS2010 and it was great.
Now I installed yesterday R# 7.1 trial and my VS 2012 became slow to the point I really
want to uninstall R# despite all the heartache involved with it.
Any advices on how to troubleshoot this performance issue?
Please be more specific: what kind of projects do you work with, did you notice which particular actions are slow (for example, opening a solution, invoking code completion (IntelliSense) in JavaScript or something like this). Without details I can only give you these general advises:
Close Visual Studio, try to delete your solution caches (they are usually located near your *.sln file, in folder named like _ReSharper.), open Visual Studio again.
Try to temporaty disable/uninstall all other Visual Studio extensions/plugins.
Try ReSharper 8.0 EAP, maybe your issue is fixed there.
ReSharper has a feature that allows you to profile it (menu ReSharper | Help | Profile Visual Studio). If you know a reproducible slow action, you can invoke this feature, make this action and then send this performance snapshot to JetBrains support (http://www.jetbrains.com/support/resharper/) or open a bugreport at http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/. They could tell you which part of ReSharper is slow and how to disable that part.

Visual Studio 2012 Express is suddenly "incompatible with this version of Windows"?

I'm running Visual Studio Express 2012 on Windows 7. I've been running it with no problems for several months now.
Last Friday, when I shut down my PC, a lot of Windows updates were installed. This morning, when I started up and opened a VS2012 solution, I got this error message:
This program has known compatibility issues
...
Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Desktop is incompatible with this version of Windows.
There's a button for Run Program, and when I click it, the solution opens normally. I haven't changed anything about my Windows configuration. This happens every time I open a solution. Did MS release a flawed patch in the batch of updates that got applied last Friday?
EDIT: I'm not sure why people are voting to close this question. The answer that's been linked to isn't related to my issue; that answer seems to pertain to trying to open a VS2012 project in VS2010. I'm trying to open a VS2012 project in VS2012. If you really think that the question needs to be closed, please let me know why in the comments, so that I can change it appropriately.
The .NET updates installed on Friday were:
KB2805226
KB2805221
KB2804582
UPDATE: I gave up, more or less, and clicked the "Don't show this window again" checkbox on the error window. Visual Studio seems to be running ok.
I received the same message on Visual Studio 2012 Premium (on PC where Windows 7 re-installed in last month) - the suggested fix was "Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (KB2781514)" which seems to have fixed it
www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36020
Install Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 solved my problem. No previous update needed for this one. Here's the descriptions of the update.
(I'm using Windows 8, installed all important updates for Windows, then tried repair Visual Studio in Programs and Features, problem still here until installed Update 2.)
I've been running VS2012 for about 2 weeks now since I clicked the "Don't show this window again" button. I haven't encountered any problems. For now I'm going to consider this an adequate solution.
I've just installed VS2012 at home and came across the same problem. The 1st solution I found is that webdeploy doesn't work after Oct 2013 and I should install Web deploy V3.0.
Done that, no joy. I let Win7 search for compatibility solution on-line and it found an update patch (KB2781514) which did work.
This is the same solution as mentioned before by #John M.
Should've looked here first, just posting this again if someone comes across this again these days..
Thanks to all other users who helped with this thread.
I had a similar problem with VS2012 awhile ago it was along the lines of:
"this solution has no errors and could potentially be damaged"
*yet still opened fine.
as far as fixing it went I performed a clean install of VS2012 and the error has not bugged me since in saying that I am probably out of date at this time and may find if I updated I would have the same issue.
Food for thought.
Even i had the same problem on Windows 7 with Visual studio 2012.
Installed Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 -KB2781514 and it fixed the issue.
Note: "Just clicking on Run program was also opening up the solution file without any issues in my case."

web essentials 2012 crashes when I open a project that already has a file open

An interesting things is happening and I was hoping someone would be able to help me with it.
Visual Studio 2012 with Web Essentials installed was working fine until the latest update (the one where they removed less, coffeescript, etc.)
However since the update, I am having problems. This only happens when I open a project that has a file - which web essentials would act upon - already open.
If I close all of the tabs with cshtml/less/css files before I close a project. Then the next time I open that project, I am fine. I can even open those files, and web essentials kicks in with all of its extra features. But if even one of those files are open when the project was saved, and therefore opened automatically when the project is loaded, then the entire visual studio crashes.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you
Found the issue after days and days of searching (only minutes after posting this question :))
The latest version of Web Essentials requires ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2
I had heard a lot about these Tools 2012.2 but I thought that they were an extension - maybe the "Microsoft Web Development Tools" installed automatically with visual studio or something that would get upgraded automatically with all of the auto updating software running on my machine.
So I tried updating all of the extensions and refreshing and refreshing and searching for updates - to no avail.
I even downloaded and installed VS2012 Update 2 CTP4 thinking that that must be this elusive update that everyone is talking about.
Well as I'm sure you guessed, its actually none of the above.
The link is http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=282650
It is listed on the home page of web essentials but not on the page that pops up when you run the update.
I hope this link helps someone.

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