Visual Basic 2005 Configuration Manager Missing? VB is just tying to be helpful and is hiding it...

I recently built out a new work notebook and have started to code on it... Well there I was, in VB8/VS2005, and all my releases were going into the bin\release folder.

Okay, I said to myself, I want to create debug builds, so all I need to do is switch to the Debug build configuration.

That's when the fun started.

Build menu? Nope, not there.

Right click/Properties? Nope.

Compile tab on the Project Properties? Nope.

Toolbar's? Nope.

Manually add it to the toolbar? It adds but remains disabled, so nope.

GRRRRR. This can't be that darn hard! Come on.... Time to give in and search.

 

The issue is that VB is trying to "help" and is hiding/disabling the advanced build configurations.

To enable the Configuration Manager and build configurations go to the Tools/options menu, click on "Projects and Solutions" and make sure the "Show advanced build configurations" is checked. Once you click Ok, the Configuration Manger will appear in the Build menu, when you right click on Solutions, when you view Solution Properties, in the Project property dialog/compile tag, etc, etc.

Thanks to visualstudio-l - Visual Studio 2005 Configuration Manager not accessible via menu for helping me hunt this down.

Sometimes VB is just too helpful...

(Please no C# is better/VB bytes/etc comments... It is what it is and after you've been coding in a language for 15 years, it's usually more productive to just stick with it [though I am working on C# for personal/home projects to help broaden my horizons, etc]... Yes, 15+ years. I have production apps in every VB for Windows version [no prod apps in VB for DOS... remember that?]... VB 1.0 on Windows 3.0 was my first VB app [with 4MB of RAM... LOL] ... ;)