ShawnVN's Blog

Ah yes, so this is where I first learned about the /nosplash switch!

The VSEdit powertoy is invaluable -- use it to load multiple text/source files, from the command line, into one instance of VS.

-S

Just got back from a week-long training gig in Tokyo...  Our newly developed class on Developing Tablet PC applications in C# has finally started to mature -- it's good stuff.

http://tabletpctraining.com/

But delivering it to an audience that, for the most part, doesn't speak English (I had a team of interpreters helping me out) and who are using Japanese VS 7.0 on Japanese XP... whoa.  What an experience!  Those interpreters were amazing.  Truly talented souls...  I'm sure they're underpaid.

As for me?  I don't speak a word of Japanese.  Kanjii is like Greek... err, actually, Greek is much more familiar to me.  But as it happens, almost all of the keyboard shortcuts are the same on Japanese XP/VS, as in English!  And those of you who know me, know how I work -- I don't do anything, without I memorize a keyboard shortcut.

So.  Jet-lag notwithstanding, I was up all night before the first day of class, back-converting all our labs' project files from VS 7.1 to 7.0.  Decompiling our helper components with ILDasm v1.1, hacking all the refs back from 1.0.5000 to 1.0.3300, then rebuiding with ILAsm v1.0.  Damn, do I love .NET...!

And speaking of underpaid interpreters...  I'm floored by the sheer cost of this trip!  Some places in Tokyo want ¥2,000 for a cup of coffee.  That's, like, US$20.00!!!  And not a latte, mind you -- just a brewed cup of coffee.  (I was afraid to ask for a refill.)

And economists covering the Japanese markets have the nerve to complain about deflation... umm...?!?!

The startup time of VS.NET 2003 seems vastly improved over the initial release...  I'm going to experiment with using it as my one and only general purpose text editor.

So, in the process of tweaking my registry accordingly, I began inserting the /nosplash command line switch, everywhere I saw a devenv.exe command line.  (This switch, obviously, supresses VS's splash screen at startup.)

Mind you, I can't tell if the switch actually improves the startup time any -- it probably can't hurt -- but it definitely improves the subjective startup experience.  I mean, who wants to see a bloody splash screen, every time you edit your grocery list?

So.  I came here (to my blog) to publicly thank whoever it was that first clued me into the /nosplash switch -- but then a funny thing happened: I forgot where/how I learned about it!

Even funnier: Google doesn't know.  A search for "devenv nosplash" returns zero hits.  (After this blog entry goes live, I guess that will change... perhaps making that pair of words great fodder for the Google Game.  ;-)

Did I just intuit the existence of this command line switch?  Surely not...  OTOH, I have been watching an awful lot of The Matrix lately.

"Do not try to bend the splash screen... That's impossible.  Instead, only try to realize the truth.  There is no splash screen."

http://www.google.com/search?q=NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation

If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend setting this tweak in your registry, and rebooting.

It's cute when the dir command treats *.htm like *.html; it's devastating when the del command interprets *.res as *.resx.

Setting NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation will supress the creation of shortnames for new files, but the only way I know of to remove shortname entries for existing files is to rename them.

for /r %I in (*) do @ren "%I" "%~nxI.no8dot3" && ren "%I.no8dot3" "%~nxI"
for /d /r %I in (*) do @ren "%I" "%~nxI.no8dot3" && ren "%I.no8dot3" "%~nxI"

But be careful -- only do this for data files, not for anything might be installed/registered software.  Your registry is full of shortnames pointing into your ProgramFiles folder!