WPF precompiled resources in WinForm application?

I am working on an application that started out as a WinForm but it is now utilizing WPF windows with UI. The interaction is all working beautifully but when the WPF windows are first shown it takes quite a long time (around 1-3 seconds) for them to show. So long that some wonder if the app has crashed (until the content shows). The second time the same windows are invoked they come up quickly. I need them to come up quickly the first time around.

I am making use of styles and control templates that are located as XAML in the resource folder. In the XAML for the WPF windows I then merge them into the windows resource dictionary. The Build Action for those (in VS 2010) needs to be set to "Resource". Preferably I want to keep them in separate files for easy maintenance. As far as I understand if the build action was "Page" the XAML would be pr开发者_运维知识库ecompiled and should load faster but if I set it to Page I cannot merge them into the resource dictionary. Is there a way around that?

I am fairly new to this part of WPF and so far my internet search hasn't been successful.

To be clear: I am not talking about WPF controls being embedded in WinForms. I am talking about entirely separate WPF windows that are spawned from the WinForm context.

Is there a way to precompile the entire app or at least all XAML (it's all static, no dynamic XAML)?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: The UIs are not heavy by any means. The ones in question have between 5 and 20 buttons and the usual containers (basically a grid with 1 or 2 stack panels).

Update: I tried precompilation with "NGEN install appname" - no effect on WPF window load.

I included all resources and templates into the window.xaml - no effect. (window.xaml is pre-compiled)

I found this really interesting article about pre-jitting upon app load here:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/pre_JIT.aspx (I used the improvement suggested by 'ittay ophir')

• again: no effect on WPF window load...

The load times simply won't change on first load but they are significantly reduced on all consecutive loads (loads in 20ms or less).

What the heck is going on here?

How about loading the XAML asynchronously using XamlReader.LoadAsync Method ?