Is there a way to *completely* disable Edit and Continue?

Question

I was wondering if there was a way to completely lock my code while debugging it within Visual Studio 2008. The code documents lock automatically when running as 64 bit applicat

Answer 1

Here is the best I could come up with. It works, but there are some steps you may not want to take.

Essentially, the technique is to set the files of your project to Read-Only when you run the application, and then set them back to writable once your application ends.

However, in VS2k8, by default, setting a file to Read-Only still allows you to edit the file. You need to first turn off the setting "Allow editing of read-only files..." in Tools > Options > Environment > Documents.

Second, you need to add the following key to the registry as a DWORD and set its value to 1:

HKCU\Sofware\Microsoft\Visual Studio\9.0\Source Control\UncontrolledInMemoryEditDialogSuppressed  

This still won't work completely. What you then have to do is set your Source Control for that project to Visual Source Safe. (<-- this is the step I'm assuming you won't like.)

Then restart VS2k8.

At this point if you set one of your files to read-only, you will see that Visual Studio will not let you edit this file at all. When you try, it plays your computer's exception music.

Now, to make your files read-only when you run the app, set a post-build process to do this. That's easy.

Harder, is to set them back to writable once your app finishes running. The simplest solution is probably a batch file shortcut.