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Visual Studio 2008 SP1 - Code Coverage Settings Window Closes Unexpectedly

By Doug Holland (Intel) (249 posts) on September 22, 2009 at 2:03 pm

I discovered an issue with Visual Studio 2008 SP1 today that it appears to be related to the fact that the solution contains a Silverlight 3.0 project.

When you add unit test projects to Visual Studio 2008 SP1 a default test run configuration file is added to the solution within the Solution Items solution folder. I have highlighted the test run configuration file within the following image of the solution explorer.

If you double click on the test run configuration file you'll then be presented with the test run configuration editor shown here.

After opening the configuration this morning I clicked the Code Coverage option in the list box and the window closes unexpectedly. After searching with Bing online for others experiencing the same issues, who hopefully have a resolution, I found the following discussion on the MSDN forums. It appears that the window has been disappearing unexpectedly for some time now as the initial forum thread was related to Visual Studio 2005.

While there are many factors, based on analysis of the thread on the MSDN forums, that can cause the window to close unexpectedly, windows just should not close unexpectedly. Well placed try catch blocks within the code for this window could at least provide some insight into why this is happening and even inform the user that they need to download a given hot fix.

It appears that the issue is caused, at least in this case, by the fact that there is a Silverlight 3.0 project within the solution. Unloading the project from the solution, at least temporarily, seems to resolve the issue. Projects can be unloaded from Visual Studio by right clicking on the project within the solution explorer and selecting the Unload option.

Once the project is unloaded from the solution it will appear disabled as shown here.

After discovering an effective work around for the issue I decided to search on the Microsoft Connect website and see if there was already a bug reported and if not then I'd write up the bug report. Dave Smits reported the issue in February 2009 and a few days after he reported it the team indicated a forthcoming hot fix should resolve the issue.  According the comment Dave left us in July on the Connect item, the hot fix can be downloaded here. Thanks Dave!!!

I downloaded the hot fix and installed it a few moments ago and it works great now, here is the test run configuration window and it no longer closes unexpectedly.

Categories: Parallel Programming, Software Tools

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Comments (6)

February 3, 2010 3:00 AM PST dave

glad to see people can take advatange of it!

March 8, 2010 9:35 PM PST Amir Rajan

thanks you!

April 9, 2010 12:08 AM PDT Doug Holland (Intel) Total Points: 14,135 Black Belt

Hey Dave, Thanks for providing the link to this hotfix :) - Doug

April 9, 2010 12:09 AM PDT Doug Holland (Intel) Total Points: 14,135 Black Belt

Amir, you've got Dave to thank and not me :)

July 21, 2010 9:07 PM PDT Robert

Alternatively, you could also openup devenv /safemode via command prompt and it will work.

August 18, 2010 10:04 PM PDT JAMES WILLIAMS JR

new computer on 7/23/10 now at 8/16/10 window 7 safe mode started problem a lot of now except with computer user no games no search etc why.?

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