Sometimes Visual Studio is really slow in starting up. I have a dual boot system and the startup times between operating system A and B (both with VS 2008) is big. So I spent some time in investigating this issue. This is what I found:
- Team Explorer (Team Foundation Server client) automatically connects synchronously. Especially slow when TFS is unavailable or you're using a slow network connection;
- You have files or folders in your 'Recent Files/Projects' list that are no longer reachable ( disconnected network drive)
Speed up TFS
- Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe);
- Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\TeamFoundation (for VS 2005, change to 9.0 for VS 2008)
- Add or edit a DWORD value named AutoLoadServer
- Set the value to 0.
- From now on you have to connect manually (by clicking 'Connect to Team Foundation Server' from the Tools menu)
Or, you can download and import a registry file (for VS 2005+2008).
Speed up MRU (recent files/projects)
- Lower or disable the number of recent files in the Visual Studio options
- Delete the recent file list by deleting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\FileMRUList and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\ProjectMRUList (for VS 2005, change to 9.0 for VS 2008)
The big difference between OS A &B was that Team Explorer was only installed on OS A.
Hope this helps,