PRB: Loading a Workspace is Slow in Visual C++

• The Development Environment, included with:
  • Microsoft Visual C++, 32-bit Editions, versions 5.0, 6.0

SYMPTOMS

Developer Studio may appear to hang for 60 seconds or more when loading a workspace.

CAUSE

Please refer to the MORE INFORMATION section.

RESOLUTION

Please refer to the MORE INFORMATION section.

STATUS

Microsoft is researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

Following are several known causes:

1. You may have many nodes expanded in InfoView.
   
   After loading the class information for a workspace, Developer Studio restores the state of the InfoView pane to when you last saved the workspace. The more nodes that are expanded in InfoView, the longer it takes to restore the state. For optimal load time, collapse all of the nodes in InfoView, then save the workspace.
   
   This is not an issue in Visual C++, version 6.0, because HTML Help is used for the Help engine rather than InfoView.



2. You may have a corrupted workspace options file.
   
   The workspace options file will have the same base name as your project with a .OPT extension. This file does not contain the file lists or the build options needed to successfully build your projects. You may safely delete this file. If you find that you need to delete this file frequently, run a disk analysis tool such as ScanDisk to test the surface of your disk for bad sectors.



3. You may have network or CD drive paths in your environment, Developer Studio options, or project settings.

   Windows NT

   To edit paths from your environment in Windows NT, click the Start menu and select Settings, Control Panel, and click the System icon. Select the Environment tab. Note that there are two list boxes for environment variables: System Variables and User Variables. Check both of these for any network or CD drive paths.

   Windows 95

   To edit paths from your environment in Windows 95, use a text editor and open the C:\autoexec.bat file.
   
   The environment variables you are most interested in are PATH, INCLUDE, and LIB. These contain the executable, include file, and library search paths respectively.
   
   Remove all paths that point to locations on your network or your CD-ROM drive.

   Developer Studio Options

   To edit paths in your Developer Studio options, from the Tools menu, select Options. Select the Directories tab. In the "Show directories for" list, cycle through each of the four sets of paths--executable, include, library, and source--and remove all paths that point to locations on your network or your CD-ROM drive.

   Project Settings

   To edit the paths in your project settings, from the Project menu, choose Settings. Select the C++ tab. Select "Preprocessor" from the Category drop- down list. Under "Additional include directories," remove all paths that point to locations on your network or your CD-ROM drive. Select the Link tab. Select "Input" from the Category drop-down list. Under "Additional include directories," remove all paths that point to locations on your network or your CD-ROM drive.
   
   Save your projects and try again. If the problem persists, it may be that you created a new configuration based on a configuration that did have an include or library search path in the project settings that pointed to a location on your network or your CD-ROM drive. In this case, Developer Studio saves the options that the configuration was created with so that if you choose to click the Reset button on the Project Settings dialog box, the project settings will be reset to the options with which the configuration was created. There are two ways to modify this:
   
   
   • Delete all such configurations and recreate them.
   
   
   
   • Use a text editor to modify the project file (.DSP) directly. This option is dangerous and may render the project file unusable in certain circumstances.
   
   
   



4. The size of the .NCB is dependent on the number and size of your classes. It is regenerated when you open your workspace. You may delete this file and see if there is any improvement in load time.

Keywords          : kbHTMLHelp kbVC500 kbVC600 kbGrpDSTools 
Version           : WINDOWS NT:5.0, 6.0
Platform          : NT WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb 

Last Reviewed: July 20, 1999