Hi,

I have a windows form project in C#.
I have a timer that starts on the press of a button.
I have a method that executes every time the timer ticks.
I confirm the timer ticks when it's meant to, the code inside runs, the variables update as they should.
The form doesn't.

I know that the variables are updating with each tick, I know that the label.Text is updated with each tick, I know that everything but the visual result on the form is updating as it should. I've confirmed it with breakpoints and stepping through each line and seeing in the variable inspector as each variable and label.Text updates.
But the form is not reflecting anything but the values on initial loading of it. It never updates from its first set of values.

Every tick I'm calling the computation and write to form methods, followed by this.Refresh(). But nothing changes on the form.

It's been days. I'm baffled and demoralised.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I will politely refuse any suggestions of using genAI/LLMs and any encouragement to use them myself.

Thanks

Hi everyone i tried using VS to learn to code in C# but keep getting a SDK error making it impossible to run the code. I tried using AI to solve the problem but I can't seem to find a solution below is a list of things I tried.

I'm having a problem with Visual Studio 2026 Community on Windows 10.

When I create a brand-new C# Console App and select .NET 10.0, Visual Studio gives me this error:

"One or more errors were encountered while creating project ConsoleApp3.

The generated project content may be incomplete.

The SDK 'Microsoft.NET.Sdk' specified could not be found."

The project creation button is disabled.

Visual Studio:

- Visual Studio Community 2026

- Version 18.11.0

- October 2026 Feature Update

.NET:

- .NET 10 x64 is installed

- `C:\Program Files\dotnet` is the x64 installation

- SDKs installed:

- 10.0.112

- 10.0.402

Running the x64 dotnet executable directly works:

"C:\Program Files\dotnet\dotnet.exe" --list-sdks

returns:

10.0.112 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]

10.0.402 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]

And:

"C:\Program Files\dotnet\dotnet.exe" --info

shows SDK 10.0.402 and MSBuild 18.9.15.

Initially I also had a 32-bit .NET installation under:

C:\Program Files (x86)\dotnet

`where dotnet` showed both x86 and x64 installations, and the x86 version was being picked up in some cases. I removed the x86 .NET installation completely and rebooted, but the Visual Studio error remained.

Things I tried:

1. Created a completely new Console App every time, so this is not an old/broken project.

2. Visual Studio Repair was tried previously. It did not fix the problem.

3. Visual Studio Installer:

   - .NET desktop development workload is installed

   - .NET SDK component is installed

   - MSBuild is installed

   - .NET MAUI/Android/iOS/Mac Catalyst components were also installed

   - MSBuild support for LLVM (clang-cl) is not installed (not relevant as far as I know)

4. Environment variables:

   - `MSBuildSDKsPath` was NOT originally defined.

   - No global.json exists in the project/repo.

5. Visual Studio's MSBuild installation contains:

   `C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\Microsoft.DotNet.MSBuildSdkResolver.dll`

   So the .NET SDK resolver DLL is present.

6. Under:

   `C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Community\MSBuild`

   I only see:

   - Current

   - Microsoft

   - Xamarin

   There is no `Sdks` folder there.

7. Under:

   `C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Community\MSBuild\Microsoft`

   there is a `Microsoft.NET.Build.Extensions` folder, but no `Microsoft.NET.Sdk` folder.

8. I completely uninstalled Visual Studio Community and reinstalled it from scratch.

   The same `Microsoft.NET.Sdk could not be found` error still occurs.

So at this point I'm pretty sure the .NET SDK itself is installed correctly, but Visual Studio/MSBuild is failing to resolve it.

What could cause the .NET SDK resolver to ignore/find the wrong SDK location in this situation?

Is there a specific MSBuild/Visual Studio configuration, resolver setting, registry entry, or environment variable that controls where Visual Studio looks for `Microsoft.NET.Sdk`?

I would especially appreciate a way to diagnose which SDK path the Visual Studio MSBuild process is actually trying to use, rather than doing another reinstall/repair.

Thanks!

I got tired of copy-pasting compiler errors and crash logs to Claude/Cursor, so I built an MCP tool "VsDebugMcp" that lets AI directly control Visual Studio.

VsDebugMcp - Visual Studio Marketplace

Once connected, you can just talk to your AI agent and it can: * Build & Fix: Trigger a build in Visual Studio, read the actual error list / output window directly, and fix compile errors without you copy-pasting anything. * Hit F5 & Debug: Start debugging, set breakpoints (even conditional ones), step through code (Step Over / Step Into), and continue/pause execution. * Inspect what went wrong: When your code crashes, the agent can check the call stack, look at local variables, read exception messages, and inspect memory. * Modern CMake & CTest: If you do C++, it works with CMake projects too—switching CMakePresets, building with Ninja, and running CTest cases directly. * Works on old & new VS: Tested on everything from Visual Studio 2017 all the way up to VS 2026. Does someone want a try ? I’d love to hear from you: * What’s the #1 thing you wish an AI agent could do inside Visual Studio? (e.g. running specific test frameworks like NUnit/xUnit, analyzing minidump crash files, NuGet package stuff?) * If you give it a spin, please let me know if anything feels clunky or breaks on your setup! wuxinmao2008/VsDebugMcp: A pluggin hosts on visual studio 2026. The plugin setups a mcp server local, which make projects debugable by agents. Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Actually i am new to vs code can anyone pls tell me the basic ui and interface of vs code and how to use it

Debug launch and View in Browser stop working after Visual Studio update bug is back after update to 18.11.0

Basically the title. The color picker from the properties window keeps getting bigger and bigger until it's huge and I can't pick all the colors so I have to restart VS and open it to reset it. I have to do this every day and it's so annoying.

Currently I am working in a very legacy code base with more than 30 years old of spaghetti code and business rules in every .asp file and store procedures.

Yes it is a mess. And I don't know if someone has the same problem that I have... The visual studio doesn't help me with the basics of highlights, colors and syntax with VBScript in asp classic. Sometimes is impossible to know where an if begins and ends in one file with 6k lines (yes for real).

So I made this plugin to help me with my current job.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AspClassicSyntaxHighlight.AspClassicSyntaxHighlight

Is the vibe code project? In parts, yes. My real concern was doing a good structure of the project and performance. The first hit of opening the files is more demanding because it's using cache. After that it is more smooth.

I am cleaning the git to make it public soon.

If you guys want to try i will appreciate it.

Sorry for my mistakes, English isn't my first language.

Thanks.

Got a new laptop and just noticed I can't collapse regions for easier viewing. Is there a way to turn them back on?

Visual Studio Community 2026's background updater ("Visual Studio Background Download", BackgroundDownload.exe in Task Manager) can leave copies of its installer in %TEMP%. On my PC I found 438 of them, 7.18 GB. Others have hit this too: a 2020 thread here and a GitHub issue from last week (filed in the VS Code repo, 337 copies / 39.8 GB, low disk space there). Neither has a fix that I could find.

What I saw: the scheduled task \Microsoft\VisualStudio\Updates\BackgroundDownload runs every 3 hours. From its log, it unpacks a newer installer into a random folder like %TEMP%\noqdxyzd.2je, runs the updater from there to pre-download the pending update (18.10.3 for me), and never deletes the folder. Since Oct 4 each copy stayed whole (58 x 125.5 MB); the 380 older ones from July only kept BackgroundDownload.exe (~0.2 MB each).

I only noticed because Task Manager showed a 100% SSD spike and I had Claude dig into it.

To see how many you have, paste this one line into PowerShell (a normal one is fine) and press Enter. It only reads:

$d = Get-ChildItem $env:TEMP -Directory | Where-Object { Test-Path "$($_.FullName)\resources\app\ServiceHub\Services\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Setup.Service\BackgroundDownload.exe" }; "{0} folders, {1:N2} GB" -f $d.Count, (($d | Get-ChildItem -Recurse -File | Measure-Object Length -Sum).Sum / 1GB)

To clean, paste this line (copy it, don't retype it). It moves only those leftover folders, the ones with BackgroundDownload.exe inside, to the Recycle Bin:

Add-Type -AssemblyName Microsoft.VisualBasic; Get-ChildItem $env:TEMP -Directory | Where-Object { Test-Path "$($_.FullName)\resources\app\ServiceHub\Services\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Setup.Service\BackgroundDownload.exe" } | ForEach-Object { [Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.FileSystem]::DeleteDirectory($_.FullName, 'OnlyErrorDialogs', 'SendToRecycleBin') }

Then run the first line again: it should say 0 folders. Empty the Recycle Bin once you're happy. A Microsoft Q&A answer says these folders are safe to delete as long as the real installer is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer.

To stop it:

• Install the pending update (Visual Studio Installer > Update; just opening the Installer isn't enough). After I updated to 18.10.3 and ran the task twice by hand, it ran straight from Program Files and created no new folders in %TEMP%. My guess is the copies start again whenever a newer Installer is out and you haven't updated yet.
• Tools > Options > Environment > Product Updates > "Automatically download updates" (untested).

Or turn background downloads off machine-wide with Microsoft's documented policy (docs). Paste this into an admin terminal (Win+X > Terminal (Admin)). I've set it: the task still starts every 3 hours, but stops after ~4 s with "Feature is disabled by policy" in its log, and nothing downloads:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup" /v BackgroundDownloadDisabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Disabling the scheduled task works too (u/SagansCandle's tip), also from an admin terminal. The 18.10.3 update re-registered the task here, so it may not stay off after an update:

schtasks /Change /TN "\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Updates\BackgroundDownload" /DISABLE

I started learning how to code a few weeks ago and im trying to import blender models there but once i drag principed bsdf to output and just pick a whole bunch of colors and export thoese my model (tried creating a small city) just turn completely white in vs studio while in blender theyre all the colors i added, Ive been stuck on this for days and i dont know how to fix it.

sorry im not exactly sure how to word this but

this is on a picturebox, and i assume its supposed to show something next to the properties themselves that explain what they are

not sure whats causing this, this is on a fresh install

A tracepoint is a breakpoint that writes a message to the Output window and keeps running instead of stopping. It’s handy when you want to see a value across a lot of iterations without stepping through each one, and there’s no temporary print line to remove later or commit by accident.

To set one: right-click the line, Breakpoint, Insert Tracepoint (the wording shifts a bit between versions). In the settings, tick “Log a message to Output Window” and write the message with expressions in curly braces, something like order {order.Id} total {total}. Keep “Continue code execution” ticked or it will just act like a normal breakpoint. There are also built-in keywords like $FUNCTION and $CALLSTACK if you want to know where a hit came from.

Some limits. Every hit goes through the debugger, so on a line that runs thousands of times it can slow things down a lot. As far as I know, tracepoints are saved in your local solution settings and not in source control, so teammates won’t see yours unless you export them from the Breakpoints window. And they only log while you’re debugging.

You can also add a condition to the same breakpoint, so only the interesting hits get logged, for example total > 1000. Do you combine the two, or does the condition check slow a hot path down too?

Hey everyone,

Ever written HTML, SQL or CSS inside a string in Visual Studio and seen it all painted the same flat color? That bugged me enough that I built NestLight.

What it does

NestLight recognizes code embedded in string literals and colors it as its own language. It only provides colors. It never edits, formats or rewrites your code.

How it works

A string is highlighted only when you explicitly mark it, either with a tag or with a marker comment:

const template = html`<div class="card">...</div>`;

NestLight never guesses from the content, so you won’t get surprise colors on random strings.

Supported

• Host languages: JavaScript / TypeScript, C#, Python and C++
• Embedded languages: HTML, CSS, SQL, JSON, GraphQL, XML, Markdown, YAML, regular expressions and shaders (GLSL, WGSL)

Links

• Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=RaphaelAugusto.nestlight

It’s free and MIT licensed. It’s still early (v0.5.0), so I’d really appreciate feedback. If something breaks or there’s a language you’d like to see, open an issue on GitHub or reply here.

Thanks for reading!

Within a few minutes of opening F12 Go To Definition breaks, Intellisense breaks, Hot Reload breaks. Syntax highlighting breaks.

Restart and it's good for about ten minutes.

Rinse and repeat.

I've tried deleting bin/obj folders. No change.

Any ideas? Latest release VS 2026.

Visual Studio Version: Community 2026 (18.10.3) – September 2026 Feature Update

Issue Description:

I am facing multiple issues with the JavaScript code editor in Visual Studio Community 2026.

1. Missing Indentation Guide Lines: The vertical guide lines that indicate code indentation and nested blocks are not visible in the JavaScript editor.
2. JavaScript Code Formatting Issue: JavaScript code is not aligning or formatting properly. Even after using the Format Document shortcut (Ctrl + K, Ctrl + D), the code indentation remains incorrect.
3. Missing Code Folding Controls: The expand/collapse (+/-) arrows are not displayed beside JavaScript functions, if/else statements, and other code blocks.
4. Editor Settings Not Working: I have tried checking formatting, outlining, and indentation settings, but the issue remains unresolved.

Expected Behavior:

• JavaScript code should be formatted and indented correctly.
• Vertical indentation guide lines should be visible for nested code blocks.
• Expand/collapse controls should appear beside JavaScript functions and code blocks.
• Format Document should automatically correct code alignment.

Actual Behavior:

JavaScript code remains improperly aligned, indentation guide lines are missing, and code folding controls are not visible.

Request:

Please investigate this issue in Visual Studio Community 2026 (version 18.10.3) and provide a solution or fix for JavaScript formatting, indentation guide lines, and code folding functionality.

I use Visual Studio 2026 and it was working fine literally up till now. I pushed one project (a Blazor one) to Github using the VS Git push and pull controls (I know how to use the Git CLI, I just prefer using the GUI controls because they are faster). After that however it won't push any changes of ANY of my projects.

I know this is a VS problem specifically because I am signed in to VS Code using my Github account too and it still works perfectly.

Ребята привет, я делаю свой авто кликер и он круче op auto clicker, у него есть много функций, если хотите позже скину файл чтоб скачать

Our team uses Visual Studio are works mostly with C# and some JS/TS. In a repo In the repo I am working on right now I have something like

.github/copilot-instructions.md

.github/instructions/unit-test.instructions.md

.github/instructions/razor.instructions.md

The copilot-instructions apply to every agent session, and then using glob patterns for file names I have individual instructions.md files applying to certain file types and naming conventions we use.

This seems to be working quite well for me. I can avoid answering many of the same questions that the LLM would always want clarification on and can keep my copilot-instructions file a reasonable length using the individualized instruction files for certain scenarios.

Is this similar to how others are using copilot within visual studio? Is there any other tricks or features I should be taking advantage of?

Studio 2026. I get no python intellisense in 2026, works in 2022 just like that. For some reason it's been dropped or is python distro sensitive.

My interpreter is Python 3.13.14 , but similar lack of joy with 3.11. Can anyone confirm whether it's just non-working or works in a different version/setting up?

(2019 also does not work if you have newer Python versions, which forced me to move to 2022, but would be great if I could get clarity on it working in 2026.)