1. Turn off splash screen.
I edited my visual studio shortcut to include the /nosplash option in the target filed. Now the value is ,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" /nosplash
This change cuts down the start up time to less than 2 seconds.
2. Turned off Environment tools animation.
Within VS 2008 options dialog, select the "Environment/General" subsection, uncheck the option which reads "Animate environment Tools".
3. Turned off Active item tracking.
Again, within VS 2k8 options dialog, select the "Projects & Solutions" note in the tree view. The second check box from top is "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer" uncheck this. This will stop the
4. All my internal windows are set to "Auto Hide".
None of my windows, like the property, solution, Team Explorer or other windows you might use with you development is pinned by default, this allows VS to start up quicker and allows you to select what ever operation you'ld like to do instead of waiting for VS to be responsive.
5. Turning off the start page
At start up I would like to see a blank IDE, instead of the distracting "Home" page, it aint my home or my googe reader page. If you would like to see that everytime you want to start to do some development go ahead configure it to your"home" page, but I chose the "Show empty ennvironemnt" option. This is available under Options dialog> Environment > startup sub section.
6. Turned off the Auto Tracing of editing in Text editors within VS.
This is available under "Options dialog"> Text Editor> "settings" group panel > uncheck Track Changes.
7. Disable or delete all break points before starting to debug.
Before starting to debug, delete all break points and set only the few break points to test your scenario. This greatly helps in speeding up your debug process, this enables VS to track debug symbols which are currently of interest rather than every other one you might have used during testing othe scenarios.
8."Start pages in Source view".
Unless you are starting to put your screen together, when composing your HTML / aspx pages, start in the source view rather than the design view. Depending on your computer performace, this has always helped me switch pages quickly rather than waiting for design time rendering of controls, even if we don't intend ot change 98% of the content.
9. Build and run options
If you are anyway close to my style of development, you would be debugging your app like a 100 times before you get it right, what is annoying is that, when I start a debug and if my build fails , VS 2008 still askes me if I would like to continue, I "hate" that prompt. There may be reasons why you would like to continue with a debug if you know of a blatant bug in your code? Anyway, under "Options dialog " > projects & solutions > Build and run > the drop down box for "On run when build or deployment error occurs", select "Do not launch".
There is a check box in that screen for "only build startup projects and dependancies on Run" check this box. This will not compile/build projects in your solutions that are not needed for your current debug session.
In the drop down which says " MSBuild project build output verbosity" select "Quite" this will show if there are any errors but will not output any values in to the "Output window".
10. This is more of style and practices which I follow, I have found this to be useful for me.
a. Close all windows, and open only windows that you are currently working on, every 2 or 3 hours I check if I have too many windows open.
b. Learn your keyboard short cuts for most used operations like
F12 to view a method defenition.
Shift+ F6 for building the current project,
and there are bunch of these keyboard short cuts that really helps, this speeds up the VS cuz then VS does not have to show the appropriate popup menu based on which window you are working on.
c. Install Resharper, Power commands and any other utility which you might find useful.
d. If possible get a faster harddisk than the standart one you the Manufacturer offers, that is sure to give you a boost during compilation.
Well, let me know if you have any questions or other suggestions, would love to hear from you.
Happy programming .
-Yogesh
