VS 2008 SP1 over Remote Desktop: Constant Repainting?

Question

The text editor in Visual Studio 2008 was very fast over Remote Desktop.

The text editor in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is very slow over Remote Desktop, causing way too much repainting (and resulting flickering). The slower your connection is, the worse the problem is, but it's aggravating enough even when RDPing into a machine on the same LAN.

The problem seems to be limited to Visual Studio. Doing the same editing actions in another editor (like Notepad and Notepad2) are quite fast with no full-editor repainting.

Anybody know what's causing it, and can anything be done about it?

The machine in question is running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. I've noticed it RDPing it from a variety of OSes, including Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7.

Things I've tried that haven't made any difference:

• Changing the font to Arial Black
• Using a non-TrueType font
• Turning off change tracking
• Turning off addins (I'm running TD.NET, Refactor! Pro, and GhostDoc)
• Turning off Animate Tools (that was already off, but I thought I'd list it anyway)
• Turning off the Navigation Bar

Update: For the moment, the problem seems solved, because in VS2010 Beta 1, the painting issue over RDP is now gone.

Oswin

Can you list any plugins that you have installed? By default there shouldn't be any issues running VS2008 SP1 remotely. – Ayrshire

What operating system are you connecting to and which version of the rdp client are you using? – Perm

exact same scenario is happening to me, I have resorted to notepad++ until someone here can find a solution, although I dont hold out much hope as I have tried every setting I can think of. – Carlyncarlynn

Answer 1

Try disabling Font Smoothing in your RDP options before you connect. Fixed it for me. It makes everything look rather grainy (changing the Environment font in VS to Arial 10pt helps there) but now no flicker at least. I'll take grainy with no flicker over that annoying flicker. It was going to give me seizures.

Snicker

Thank you! This has been driving me nuts for a long time. – Determinism

Answer 2

On linux with rdesktop, I couldn't use visual studio 2008 (on Win XP). The visual studio window is not responsive to click or keyboard input. It doesn't refresh at all.

Tried various actions on the Windows side, but it seems to be specific to rdesktop.

Theses options solved the problem: force RDP4, bitmap update, connect to console

rdesktop xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -g1680x960 -0 -b -4

(on Ubuntu 11.04, rdesktop 1.6.0 )

Torey

Answer 3

Did you remember to:

1. Turn off the Navigation Bar
2. Turn off Track changes
3. Turn off Animate environment tools

Pteranodon

Answer 4

Turn off any plugins. Change your font to Arial Black( I found Consolas to cause issues )

Regenerator

Answer 5

Does it happen in all file types or for example, just javascript files?

Polite

Multiple file file types: .cs, .aspx, .js, .xml – Oswin

Answer 6

Make sure that the bandwidth settings in the Remote Desktop connection are appropriate for your connection to the remote PC. Turning off themes can make a big difference.

Cromer

Answer 7

I'm not seeing this issue. However, Visual Studio 2008 does seem to keep all the Intellisense windows it has ever created, it just makes them invisible. They will show up momentarily when you log in with RDP though. Once they're all drawn, they'll disappear again -sigh-

Currie

Answer 8

This worked for me:

Right-click on devenv.exe -> Properties -> Compatibility.

Check "Disable Visual Scenes" and "Disable display composition". Press OK.

(well, actually it only reduced the flicker from a full page repaint to a lesser degree, but I'm still at a loss for this too - darn!)

Hyperactive

Answer 9

Try turning off ClearType if you're running Win7.

Instantly