Have you ever run into a scenario where a long running task causes the Visual Studio UI thread to hang or become unresponsive? The PerfWatson extension logs these issues and automatically and anonymously reports back to Microsoft.

In this episode, we are joined by Cameron McColl, who explains why the PerfWatson extension was created and how you can install it. He also shows us some collected data and explains how it's used to drive performance improvements and make Visual Studio faster.

                       

In this episode, we explore code snippets, an underappreciated feature of Visual Studio.

Code snippets are existing pieces of code. All you have to do is type the snippets shortcut and Visual Studio writes the code for you. Watch as we first use a couple of snippets that ship with Visual Studio. Then, see how to use the Snippet Designer extension and create your own snippets. With this extension, you can highlight code, right-click, and Export as Snippet. Very cool!!

                        


In this episode of Visual Studio Toolbox, we talk about reuse, something we want as much of as we can get. We look at how you can create your own item template. We take an XAML splash screen and turn it into an item template that shows up when in the Add New Item dialog box. Then, we take a look at the VSIX Explorer and Export Template Wizard extensions and see how they make it easy for us to create a .vsix file—with that file, other developers can easily install (or uninstall) the splash screen item template.

                  

Trigger started services are services in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 that can register to be started or stopped when a trigger event occurs. This eliminates the need for services to start when the system starts, or for services to poll or actively wait for an event; a service can start when it is needed, instead of starting automatically whether or not there is work to do. Examples of predefined trigger events include arrival of a device of a specified device interface class or availability of a particular firewall port. A service can also register for a custom trigger event generated by an Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) provider.

In this screencast, Kate Gregory (@gregcons) provides an overview of trigger started services on Windows 7 via the Windows API Code Pack, a source code library that can be used to access some features of Windows 7 and Windows Vista from managed code.

                         


Previously on Visual Studio Toolbox, we started looking at the Productivity Power Tools. In this episode, we explore additional features of this excellent extension. We will see enhancements to the Document Tab Well that make it easier to work with code files, and we'll take a look at both the Quick Find and Quick Access features. Quick Find makes searching in code a better experience and Quick Access means you don't have to remember where things are in the menu. Enhancements to the scroll bar and a new Add Reference dialog box are also covered.

Robert Green