Visual Studio .NET 2003 on Windows 7 hangs on search

So I开发者_如何转开发 have Visual Studio 2003 running on Windows 7 - yeah I am aware it isn't officially supported - and no, unfortunately I can't change that situation :-(

For the most part it works OK but I have a specific problem, that I can't figure out. The application hangs if you do a project wide search (Ctrl - Shift - F) for a string.

I have a reasonably powerful machine and all the other heavy tasks like compiling and debugging all work fine. It also works if I restrict the search to the current document (Ctrl - F). I am running it as administrator and VS.NET 2003 SP1 has been applied.

The size of the project does not seem to be a problem since a colleague is also experiencing this issue for a single project solution containing 5 pages.

I am currently using Windows Search as a work-around and I was wondering if there is something I missed that I should try.

Try disabling the Aero theme in compatibility. Yeah seriously...

You can do this by right clicking the shortcut to launch VS.NET 2003 and selecting properties, choosing the “Compatibility” sub-tab and then checking “Disable Desktop Compositing” as well as “Disable Visual Themes”

I use Windows 8.1, and the path
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers]
is invisible and could not be created manually inside regedit.exe. So I wrote a registry file "abc.reg" with text:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers]
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\\Common7\\IDE\\devenv.exe"="^ RUNASADMIN DISABLEDWM DISABLETHEMES"

Execute it by double click icon of "abc.reg" (may be Run As "Administrator").
It works.
(The post is for your convenience in this certain case)

I am running Windows 10 Enterprise 1909 and found global search also causes VS2003 to freeze and stop responding.

The advised registry edit did not work for me - VS2003 refuses to start up when run as admin:

A referral was returned from the server.

This is the same error I get if allowing the compatibility trouble-shooter to apply Windows XP (Service Pack 3).

I can get global search working if I remove RUNASADMIN and DISABLEDWM from the registry value (I.E. leave only DISABLETHEMES in place).

Create a registry key as follows:

• Location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
• New: String Value
• Name: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
• Value: ^ DISABLETHEMES

You will end up with an even uglier UI (quite an achievement in itself!) but at least global search will now work.