No IntelliSense with VS 2010 RC (and how to fix it)

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Patrick recently posted about something he found odd when installing the VS 2010 RC – which was that code IntelliSense for C# wasn’t working.  When he pulled up Tools->Options and checked under the Text Editor->C# settings he noticed that the reason IntelliSense wasn’t working was because his profile had them turned off – and he couldn’t understand why it was configured to be off by default:

image

Why does this happen?

The above situation occurs because:

1) When you run VS 2010 the first time on a machine that has had VS 2008 installed on it, it asks you if you want to import your existing VS 2008 profile settings.  By default this checkbox is checked – which means you by default automatically import your existing settings.

2) Some VS plugins – for example Resharper – turn off the built-in C# code intellisense within VS and instead replace it with their own implementation.  If you’ve installed Resharper on VS 2008, the above VS code IntelliSense profile settings are turned off.  When you import your existing profile during VS 2010’s first time run experience the code IntelliSense settings import over in a disabled state.  If you haven’t installed Resharper on VS 2010 (which is a separate install) – then by default you’ll end up with IntelliSense turned off.

How to Fix this?

Fixing this situation with the VS 2010 RC is pretty easy.  Just do one of two things:

1) Use the Tools->Options menu command, select the Text Editor->C# settings, and then check the two circled check boxes above (Auto-list members and Parameter information).  IntelliSense will then be turned on and work fine.

or:

2) Install the version of Resharper that works with the VS 2010 RC. It then enables IntelliSense using its own mechanism.

We are modifying the profile import behavior in the final release of VS 2010

We’ve heard reports of a few people running into this – and since the behavior is pretty confusing we are modifying the profile import behavior with the final release of VS 2010 to avoid it.  If a plugin has turned IntelliSense off with VS 2008, by default when you import the profile into VS 2010 we will re-enable it.  This will ensure that on a clean VS 2010 install IntelliSense always works by default. 

Hope this helps,

Scott

18 Comments

  • I installed VS RC on two machine : Win 7 (My personal Lap Top)& Win XP SP3(Office machine) .
    In first I have no problem in later Intellisense is some times very slow.I installed the patch in previous but it not helped.
    I have not Administrator of XP machine and I installed VS in two drives (C & D) and I have Kaspersky installed and no other device attached to PC.

  • As per the title, VS2010 is effectively a no go area for me until such time as you fix the generation of controls in code behind for web forms as this major error is blocking any real testing.

  • ali62b, Kaspersky might be the culprit there. Read my post here:
    http://heartysoft.com/post/2008/07/13/Hey-Kaspersky-Stop-Slowing-Down-My-VS.aspx

  • Thanks Scott! This is exactly what happened -- I have Resharper installed and told VS2010 to import my settings.

  • @Martin,

    >>>>>>>> As per the title, VS2010 is effectively a no go area for me until such time as you fix the generation of controls in code behind for web forms as this major error is blocking any real testing.

    We have a patch coming out for the RC shortly that will fix this. I'll blog about it once it is available.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • @ali62b,

    >>>>>>> In first I have no problem in later Intellisense is some times very slow.I installed the patch in previous but it not helped.

    I'm going to be blogged about this later tonight. You should install UIA 3.0 on your XP machine which should fix this. I'll share more details with my blog post as well as a pointer to the UIA 3.0 install.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • XAML Intellisense options are disabled with or without a project loaded

  • Thanx,

    although i m not using VS2010 properly, still this tip is helpful

  • As per the title, VS2010 is effectively a no go area for me until such time as you fix the generation of controls in code behind for web forms as this major error is blocking any real testing.

  • I now have a strange bug in the editor, for some reason when I select text with the mouse and try to delete it with the "DEL" key I doesn't do anything, sometimes happens even when I select the text with shift and move the arrows, when I press DEL nothing happens either, to make my DEL key works I need to move the cursor in the editor ( I mean move the caret with the arrows) and then when I press DEL it works, this is on a XP SP3 machine, I got beta 2, uninstall it following the instructions in the beta 2 read me and then install RC. I can’t repro on other machines at work, the only difference is that I have Hardware Acceleration set to none, I will do more tests with that settings on another machines and report back if I found something

  • Thanks for sharing. eine Seite ist entworfen worden, very nice Glückwünsche;)

  • If you are using Resharper for VS2008, make sure to check out the Reshaper 5 EAP, which also works with VS 2010.

  • Any plan to release VS 2010 RC on dreamspark? It currently offers Beta only!

  • asp.net mvc 2 Not perfect,in Areas Should Achieve 2 domain Route.Official Version To consider.
    public class HomeAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
    {
    public override string AreaName
    {
    get
    {
    return "Home";
    }
    }

    public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
    {
    context.MapRoute(
    "Home_default",
    "Home/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" },
    new string[] { "Ghaozi.HomeAreas.Controllers" }
    );
    // context.MapDomainRoute(
    // "Home_default",
    // "{controller}.asp.net/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
    // new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" } // Parameter defaults
    // );
    }
    }

  • Scott, have you seen this:

    https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/533302/issue-with-auto-generated-designer-files-not-addding-components

    This is a *huge* bug that needs to be addressed *now.*

  • but, why would anyone code without r#?

  • @Juan Zamudio:
    We've fixed two issues of this type (delete and sometimes backspace, arrow keys, or other non-alphanumerics stop working) since the RC:

    1.) If you're typing in the editor and then switch focus to a tool window while IntelliSense completion is visible, you can get into this state where delete and often related keys no longer work when you switch back to the editor.

    2.) If you're using TFS and working with team projects, opening the Build Explorer can leave VS in a state where delete alone does not work.

    Both of the scenarios above are now fixed for RTM. Unfortunately, this class of issues is tricky because similar symptoms (e.g. delete not working) may or may not actually have the same root cause. Does either of the scenarios above sound like a plausible explanation for the issues you're encountering? If not, do you have any additional clues about the repro? Either way, we're continuing to investigate this type of bug as much as we can, but these issues can be very difficult to isolate. I'd appreciate it if you could e-mail me at bbehrens at microsoft dot com to follow up on this, as e-mail is typically more effective than blog comments for tracking down individual issues.

    Thanks!

    Brittany Behrens
    Program Manager, VS Platform - Editor
    http://blogs.msdn.com/visualstudio

  • Thanks for the fix!!

    FYI: This is still an issue in Ver 10.0.03019.1 RTMRel

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