Speeding Up Debugging of the Compact Framework in VS2008

Yes, I know everyone develops on WP7 using VS2011, but for those who have to do a project in VS2008 with Compact Framework 6.5 — and there will still be some — either because they reinstalled the machine or are starting from scratch.

Compiling these solutions takes too long. One trick that can make everything faster, when you already know which device the client's application will run on — which is the case 99% of the time — is to simply disable platform verification.

Open the file %windir%Microsoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727Microsoft.CompactFramework.Common.Targets

Go to the line that says

Name=”PlatformVerificationTask”>

and change it to

Name=”PlatformVerificationTask” Condition=”‘$(SkipPlatformVerification)’ != ‘true'”>

References:

http://christian-helle.blogspot.com/2009/10/improve-netcf-build-performance-in.html

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsdteam/archive/2006/09/15/756400.aspx

and with that, all the hours you save compiling can be used to migrate to the Windows Phone 7 platform or Windows 6.5 Embedded o Windows 7 Embedded depending on who you want to help or what you want to do. Mind you, good luck finding the enterprise devices that run those platforms.

Juan Peláez
3Metas