Speeding up build times in ASP.NET

You can greatly reduce the time you wait for a build with ASP.NET by doing the following:

• Use the new "optimizeCompilations" flag. It will tell .NET to not rebuild the entire project just because you changed one project/dll. If you have 40 projects and you don't use this, every time you change a simple method in one project, .NET will try to compile all other projects and dlls. With the new flag (plus the installation of a hotfix) you will see a lot of increase overall performance during development.

And here is another tip to speed up build times with ASP.NET:

• If you have enough memory, create a RamDisk and point your ASP.NET Temporary Files to this ram-based disk.

Do you need to rebuild all 40 projects every time.

You can configure what gets built in the Solution Configuration settings.

I.e. if you're changes are only in your WebUI Project, and the other 39 projects are unchanged, you can create a build configuration where only your web application is rebuilt.

• Look at the Configuration Drop Down
• Click "Configuration Manager"
• In the "Active Solution Configuration" drop down click "New"
• Create a new Config copied from the Debug Configuration
• In your new Configuration, uncheck all project builds except the ones you've made changes in