FIX: You may experience performance issues in the IDE after you use Visual Studio 2008 to build a Visual Basic project

Consider the following scenario:

• You use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 to build a Microsoft Visual Basic project.
• The Visual Basic project contains many XML comments in a single file.
• The file is probably a designer-generated file for a dataset or for a Web reference.

In this scenario, you may experience the following performance issues in the IDE:

• The IDE takes a long time to build the solution and to rebuild the solution.
• You experience a slow response time when you press F5 to start debugging.
• You experience a slow response time in the Code Editor.
• You experience a slow response time in IntelliSense.

This problem occurs because of how the Visual Studio 2008 compiler processes large files that contain XML documentation.

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

To download this hotfix from the MSDN Code Gallery, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Note The MSDN Code Gallery displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language listed, it is because the Code Gallery resource page is not available for that language.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site:


The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time item in Control Panel.

To work around this problem, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Disable XML comment generation

To disable XML comment generation for the project, use one of the following procedures.

Visual Studio 2008

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click ProjectName, and then click Properties.
2. On the Compile tab, click to clear the Generate XML documentation file check box.
3. On the File menu, click Save All.

Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition

1. Create a backup of the project.
2. In Notepad, open the .vbproj file for the project.
3. Locate and then delete all the <DocumentationFile> elements in the .vbproj file.
   
   Note Typically, you will delete two elements in the .vbproj file.

Method 2: Remove the XML comments

To remove the XML comments, follow these steps for the designer-generated file:

1. On the Edit menu, point to Find and Replace, and then click Quick Replace.
2. In the Find what box, type '''.
3. In the Replace with box, type '', and then click Replace All.

Note You must repeat these steps if you perform one of the following actions:

• You save the designer file that generated this code file.
• You refresh the Web reference.
• You right-click the file, and then you click Run Custom Tool.

Method 3: Create a separate project to store the file that has the XML comments

Create a new class library project to store the designer-generated files. The following procedure is an example of to do this:

1. Create a new class library project to store files that contain a dataset or that contain a Web reference.
2. In the original Visual Basic project, add a reference to the new class library project.
3. Use Method 1 to disable the XML documentation file.

Note You may have to add import statements to the Visual Basic code.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about how to generate XML documentation for a project, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site: