Visual Studio 2017 - 'Lightweight Solution Load' to shorter load time

If you have a big solution with so many projects in it, the all new 'Visual Studio 2017' provides a new feature called 'Lightweight Solution Load', that helps to reduce the solution load time and substantial improvement in memory usage.

Today in this blog post, we are going to discuss about this feature along with the option to enable or disable the 'Lightweight Solution Load' feature.

The 'Lightweight Solution Load' in Visual Studio 2017 enables you to load large Solutions faster. For large Solutions, it will not only reduce the solution load time but also improve memory usage. This feature is not enabled by default but you can enable it to a specific solution or globally in the IDE.

To enable the said feature globally, navigate to Tools -> Options dialog. Then expand to 'General' under the 'Projects and Solutions' tree. There you will find an option settings called 'Lightweight Solution load'. It is unchecked by default. To enable the feature, just check it and click 'OK'.

To disable the feature IDE level, follow the same steps and uncheck the 'Lightweight Solution load' checkbox. The feature can be turned on and off for individual Solutions in the Solution properties pane too.

Once you have the lightweight solution load enabled, you can open and work with your projects and solutions normally. The setting will take effect the next time when you load a Solution; restarting the IDE is not require.

Lightweight Solution Load is best suited for large solutions that contain C# or a mix of C# and C++ projects. You may be prompted to enable the feature if the 'Visual Studio 2017' IDE detects that you are working with large solutions.