Visual Studio .NET 2003 loads slowly? Help?

[MrDoomMaster]

First, let me start by explaining the events that lead up to my problem.

(My OS is Windows XP Professional)

I previously had DirectX 8.1 SDK installed on my system, and even though I went to Add/Remove programs to uninstall it, it would say it was successful at uninstalling it, but nothing was actually removed. This forced me to manually delete the DXSDK folder, search the registry for keys related to the installation, delete them, and also remove the Direct X .cpl file (which supplied configuration from Control Panel)

After this, I installed the directx 9.0 SDK, which I planned to keep. I noticed that after installing this, visual studio .NET always took about 20 seconds to load. The HDD light on my case was always lit during the startup of Visual Studio, so I knew it had to have been loading help files every time it started.

I have currently uninstalled all signs of any DirectX sdk (or so I hope). Now, it STILL loads up slowly. When I uninstall the MSDN library (which is about 1.8GB and comes on 3 CD's), it loads up very quickly.

But keep in mind, I had MSDN AND Visual Studio .NET 2003 installed BEFORE I removed DX 8.1 SDK and DX 9.0 SDK, and it ran beautifully.

I'm wondering what more I could do to fix this issue? It drives me insane having to wait forever for VS to load.

I have tried uninstalling MSDN, Visual Studio.NET and all Direct X SDK's, and running a registry scan, rebooting, and reinstalling it all... It STILL loads slowly.

Any suggestions are helpful! Thanks!

[NoHero]

My first solution: You may defragment your harddisk, I think this will help ...

[YourSurrogateGod]

Just curious DoomMaster, but did you install any other programs (games, file-sharing thingy, etc.) from the time that you uninstalled DirectX 8.1 up until now?

But defragmenting should help. MSDN is huge like you said, so if that doesn't work, you can ask in CG again or Microsoft support.

[MrDoomMaster]

I defrag every night :) Same problem!

[YourSurrogateGod]

Well I'm stumped. Maybe you could try Windows customer service, maybe they know what it is :shrug: .

[MrDoomMaster]

I don't like the thought of paying for tech support on ALREADY expensive software :)

[Mick]

well I would try and narrow the scope of the problem. If you believe the delay is from file I/O then find out what files are being accessed then start to understand why from there.

grab filemon from www.sysinternals.com, if it is the help subsystem then maybe there is a re-indexing issue (guessing) but you need to grab a bit more information on what the IDE is doing while your waiting for those 20 seconds.

[YourSurrogateGod]

Originally posted by MrDoomMaster
I don't like the thought of paying for tech support on ALREADY expensive software :) I thought it was free :confused: .

[MrDoomMaster]

Microsoft? FREE? BWAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MrDoomMaster]

Okay Mick, I ran the FileMon while loading VS.NET 2003, and I have saved the log (which is extremely long) for you. Take a look at it, you'll notice that most of the activity shows that Visual Studio was loading files from MSDN folder :)

I wonder what makes it load all of those files? Any way to fix this? Thanks!

Since I can't attach the log (too big haha) I have posted it on my FTP site with anonymous access. Please refer to the following link to obtain the file, which is named "VSLog.zip"

ftp://doom.serveftp.net

Use anonymous access!

[MrDoomMaster]

Oh hey, I fixed it! I had to go to Tools >> Options and change the setting under "help" to use the MSDN library I installed!

Thanks for trying to help guys, I really do appreciate it!

PS: Going to disable my FTP's anonymous access now. No need for it anymore :)

[YourSurrogateGod]

Originally posted by MrDoomMaster
Microsoft? FREE? BWAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I said free, I meant/thought that it came free when you already bought that expensive software ;) .