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FIX: The Visual Studio 2008 SP1 IDE experiences slow performance when you use the workflow designer

Article ID: 980952 - View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

You use the workflow designer to open a large or complex Windows workflow solution in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) IDE. You try to open one of the following dialog boxes:

The Bind to an Activity's Property dialog box
The Browse and Select a .NET Type dialog box
The Rule Set Editor dialog box
The Select Rule Set dialog box

In this situation, the workflow designer takes a long time to open the dialog box.

Note The performance issue occurs when your computer has Microsoft Enterprise Library installed together with the Configuration Editor for Visual Studio feature.

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RESOLUTION

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft. However, it is intended to correct only the problem that this article describes. Apply it only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Customer Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

(http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support)

Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

Prerequisites

You must have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 installed to apply this hotfix.

Restart requirement

You do not have to restart the computer after you apply the hotfix if no instance of Visual Studio is being used.

Hotfix replacement information

This hotfix does not replace any other hotfixes.

File information

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.

Collapse this tableExpand this table

File name	File version	File size	Date	Time	Platform
Cslangsvc.dll	9.0.30729.4501	5,309,776	02-Mar-2010	20:09	x86
Microsoft.workflow.debugcontroller.dll	9.0.4203.4501	153,472	02-Mar-2010	20:09	x86
Microsoft.workflow.expressionevaluation.dll	9.0.4203.4501	4,608	02-Mar-2010	20:09	x86
Microsoft.workflow.vsdesigner.dll	9.0.4203.4501	532,480	02-Mar-2010	20:09	x86
Workflowproject.dll	9.0.4203.4501	161,632	02-Mar-2010	20:09	x86

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STATUS

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

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MORE INFORMATION

To improve the performance of the workflow designer, install the hotfix that is described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

980951

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980951/ )

FIX: A workflow takes a long time to open when you use the workflow designer in a .NET Framework 3.5 SP1-based solution

Additionally, you can use the following methods to improve the performance of the workflow designer:

Relocate interfaces, event types, custom activities, and helper classes that are used in workflows to a different project that does not contain the workflows.
Reduce the number of workflows in a project.
Re-factor large state machine workflows into smaller workflows.
Do not run long-running work in activity constructors.

For more information about how to improve the performance of the workflow designer, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Workflow designer and performance

(http://blogs.msdn.com/madhuponduru/archive/2008/09/30/workflow-designer-and-performance.aspx)

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