Whidbey Hates Me

I've been trying to convert a Windows application from VS.NET 2003 to VS.NET 2005 - March CTP, and I haven't had the best of luck. First, the installation I did was running RIDICULOUSLY slow. Every time I made a code change, it took in upwards of 4 minutes to recompile a 4 project solution (on a dual proc, hyperthreaded 2.4GHz Xeon box). Then, I kept getting COM errors in the designer. I saw some cool new properties in the "Project Properties" dialog, like "Make Single Instance Application" and "Show Splashscreen At Startup", but none of them were enabled in the upgraded project, which made ma kinda mad. So I finally said "screw it", reformatted the box, reinstalled Windows XP and VS.NET 2005, and tried to start designing a Windows application from scratch.

Nothing but problems from here. First off, my toolbox was empty. Fortunately, the toolbox has a "Restore Toolbox" option, which, after several seconds of inactivity, gave me all my controls. Then, I go to start designing the main form. I slap some controls on there, set some properties, and hit "Debug". I see my splashscreen (for a 10th of a second) and then the form comes up, minus any controls. It turns out, the designer did not progapate the code to the .VB file AT ALL. Oh yeah, and when I go to "Project | Project Properties", the dialog that appears is modal, and cannot be closed.

Has anyone else seen this behavior, or does my computer just hate me?

6 Comments

  • "Has anyone else seen this behavior, or does my computer just hate me?"



    I don't think your computer *hates* you, but I've been getting the feeling lately that it might need some space or a change from The Routine.



    It just hasn't seemed its usual, spunky self recently. Have you tried taking it out to dinner and telling it how pretty it is? Your computer might seem confident, but that might just be its way of hiding something.



    I'd suggest dressing it up nicely in a lot of bubble wrap and taking it to the beach for the week - maybe somewhere near San Diego?



    (on a more serious note ("seriouser"?), I've actually been having a lot of luck with XP and Whidbey under VPC, although I know some other people who have had random badness similar to what you've described here - I don't think it's just you...)

  • "maybe somewhere near San Diego"



    Just remembered you aren't going... Whoops :|



    Never mind.



    (but still show that PC a nice time)

  • LMAO Rory. You made my night.



    Well, this particular machine is a dual proc 1U server that weights about 40 lbs. And she's extremely loud too. I think she's starting to get down on herself for the fact that she's overweight, and it seriously affects her mood. She's been quite irritable lately, and it's affected her performance.



    Maybe it's time for a pampering. You know, some flowers, a nice romantic evening with candles... maybe a can of air duster and a small vacuum. You never know. Maybe she needs a change of pace. I should see about setting her up on the other side of the room. See how she likes it.



    Thanks for the insight, Rory ;).

  • There's some probs with the project properties or some of the properties window I've noticed. It's easy to get in to such state that it doesn't allow you to exit the properties. I am not entirely sure but it seems to get in to that state by changing some particular options.

  • A list of small nuisances:

    - After editing the project properties, it can't be saved (culture 'neutral' not supported, or something like that). Only occures after editing a specific property, which I haven't found yet.

    - The disappearing controls: the code isn't added to the .vb file - it is somehow trying to add it to a hidden vb file with the same class (named Form1.Designer.vb), but somehow it can't. Delete this file and reopen the solution, and everything works.

    - COM errors in the designer: I have no clue. Restart the environment and it should work a few more minutes.

    - New cool project properties: you cannot have a custom Sub Main defined.

    - Can't publish any projects, because it complains that the vb project build failed (even though it didn't)...

    - There are plenty more...

  • My team and I all had the March CTP installed and it ran super slow for about half of us. We are hoping to get more luck with the May CTP (downloading now).

    For us it seemed to be a problem with the display of errors and warnings after the build. We were getting 502 warnings (mostly XHTML syntax) in our project and it was causing the error listbox to freak out.

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