Visual Studio 2010 does not rebuild the modified code unless I manually select Rebuild,

Question

Last week or so, I noticed that Visual Studio 2010 will not recompile the code unless I force it. This is a C # 4.0 project with WPF. I hit F5, which seems to have used rebuild if the code was modified, and then launched the application. Instead, it now says “Build Successful” in the bottom left status bar and launches the application. However, this does not rebuild the application. I can say because:

• even if I make a large number of changes, it "compiles" very quickly and
• If I try to set a breakpoint, this will give a warning that the code has been changed and not set a breakpoint.

This happens regardless of whether there are errors in the code or not, so I do not believe that it launches an older version if the assembly fails.

If I instead select from the menu to rebuild the project, it then works. However, this method complicates my normal workflow. I often forget to do this, and then spend 10 minutes trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with my changes. Even worse, sometimes assembly errors occur that I don’t notice right away.

Pressing F6 to “rebuild” the solution does nothing either. What settings can I turn off, this will lead to this behavior?

Answer 1

Yes, I get it. Naturally, something stupid that I did when I was busy with the build settings after too late at night. Here are some things to check:

• Tools → Options → Project and solution → Build and run → Make sure “When starting when projects are out of date” is set to Always Build or Request Assembly
• Build -> Configuration Manager -> Make sure that for all projects that you want to use, for all the configurations that you want to use, "Build" is checked.