Visual Studio Hanging / Locking Up?

For a reason I have not found the direct cause to - Visual Studio 2005 SP 1 would lock up or "hang" for 1-2 minutes after a compile and before debugging. The problem was inconsistent. It did not seem to matter if I changed anything or not. Just stopping and restarting it and ever now-and-then it would appear. I tried various solutions such as clearing the settings, opening a single project at a time, re-applying service packs, etc. I tested it on Visual Studio 2008 as well - the problem occurred there too.

So, from the way it was acting - it appears that something is going on behind the scenes that "visual studio" cannot connect to. No error messages or dialogs appear. But my gut feeling is that attempts were being made to access something.

What worked? I turned off the standard Windows Firewall. Blamo! I don't recommend doing that without some other means of protecting your PC - but if you are inside a firewall and you have this problem - it might just help.

So, that was the quick and dirty. I re-enabled the firewall and added the Visual Studio and SQL Server to the "Exceptions" list:

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Windows Firewall
2. Click on the Exceptions tab.
3. Added the following programs:
   
   Microsof tCLR Debugger
   Microsoft visual Studio 2008
   Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
   SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio
   SQL Server Profiler
   SQL Server Management Studio
   SQL Server Error and Usage Reporting
4. Click OK.

This appears to have solved the problem for me. I hope it helps you.