PRB: Disabled Developer Studio Add-Ins Not Unloaded From Memory

ID: Q179285

The information in this article applies to:

The Development Environment, included with:
- Microsoft Visual C++, 32-bit Enterprise Edition, versions 5.0, 6.0

SYMPTOMS

When a DLL add-in is disabled in Developer Studio through the Tools/Customize dialog box (click Customize on the Tools menu), the DLL is not unloaded from memory. As a result, if the add-in is being built in Developer Studio, the linker cannot overwrite the still-loaded DLL and will give the following error message:

LINK : fatal error LNK1168: cannot open Debug/test.dll for writing

NOTE: Test.dll is the name of the add-in DLL.

RESOLUTION

After disabling the add-in, close Developer Studio then reopen Developer Studio. The development environment will not load the add-in, and therefore changes may be made to the DLL.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

REFERENCES

The online help topic "Disconnecting Add-ins from Developer Studio" describes part of the process of disabling an add-in:

If you remove the check mark from an add-in, you will unload it. When you unload it, the add-in loses all of its toolbar and keystroke assignments.

This statement is misleading because the add-in is not unloaded from memory, but rather the functions provided in the add-in are unloaded from Developer Studio. This is made clearer in the topic "How Add-ins Connect and Disconnect":

When Developer Studio quits, it unloads each add-in by calling the OnDisconnection method exposed by the add-in's DSAddIn object.

Consult your product documentation for more information on creating and using add-ins in Developer Studio.

Additional query words: VSDSAuto VwbIss kbvc600 kbvc500 kbDSSTools kbdse kbDSupport

Keywords : kbVC500 kbVC600
Version :
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbprb