GUI does not redraw while stepping in Debug Mode

Question

In any .NET 2.0 Winforms application, if you run the code in Debug Mode, and you either hit a breakpoint or otherwise Step Into the code line by line, and you want to see the GU

Answer 1

What is the reason for this

While you're debugging, you're effectively blocking the UI thread - you're manually stepping through its execution flow. The UI thread can't draw the UI while you're stopping it from executing.

and is there a way to overcome this

You could try calling Application.DoEvents() manually, but I'd generally recommend against it.

It would be better to just wait until you got to the end of the method and let the UI redraw itself normally. If your method is very long (in terms of time) then bear in mind that when not debugging, the UI still wouldn't be able to update itself while that method is executing. This may cause you to change your design (it's hard to tell just from the information we've got at the moment).