Experimental Hive Support

Question

In the new version of Visual Studio, if I only use MEF support for my extensions, is there a way to disable my component in a debug environment? (IE, one debugging VS with no component, one debugee VS with the component). This was a very normal scenario with regular/experimental hives, and it was really useful. I can think of 2 cases where this will be needed:
1) If my component completely crashes VS (already done that!), there is no way to debug to see how far it'll get before crashing
2) If my component modifies the behaviour of the language in which the component is developed (a C# component modifying the C# editor), I may end up being unable to code the component without removing it first: code - close vs - test - close vs - del component - code.

Answer 1

Joaquin,

I agree that this is a common scenario and that the behavior you're seeing creates a painful testing and debugging experience.  Unfortunately, there is no workaround for this in the CTP, but we know this is a critical scenario that the CTP does not handle well.  You will see substantial improvements in the next version of VS 2010, so I encourage you to take another look when a beta is released and let us know what you think. 

Thanks for trying out the CTP and sending your feedback!

Brittany Behrens
Program Manager, Visual Studio Platform

Answer 2

What's exactly the effect of using vsregex.exe over Dev10? Currently we're playing with the old package-based Registry-oriented code. Seemingly, the hives still work somewhat… but only somewhat.