11 July 2014

How to improve Visual Studio .NET Build Performance

Here are some of the good ones I found that worked. Use at your own risk of course!

Clear Visual Studio temp files
Deleting the contents of the following temp directories can fix a lot of performance issues with Visual Studio and web projects:
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C:\Users\richardd\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache
C:\Users\richardd\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\siteName
Clear out the project MRU list
Apparently Visual Studio sometimes accesses the files in your your recent projects list at random times, e.g. when saving a file. I have no idea why it does this, but it can have a big performance hit, especially if some are on a network share that is no longer available.
To clear your recent project list out, delete any entries from the following path in the registry:
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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\ProjectMRUList
Disable AutoRecover
In nearly four years, I have never used Visual Studio’s AutoRecover feature to recover work. These days, source control and saving regularly almost entirely eliminates the need for it.
To disable it and gain some performance (particularly with large solutions), go to Tools >Options > Environment > AutoRecover and uncheck Save AutoRecovery information.