Slow Visual Studio Debugging Experience? VS Debugging causes IDE Hang and/or OS Freezing?

So in the course of debugging some recent applications both hang scenarios (OS and VS IDE) have come to present themselves rather angrily on my daily productivity endeavors. 2 projects, 1 with a more recent of the VS IDE of VS 2012 and another w/ an older VS IDE @ VS2010 have both in rather close proximity of time shown debugging hang/freezes that stifle my productivity, overall efficacy and just plain old SANITY. After a little research, mixed in w/ past experiences inferring and just some plain old trial and error; the below series of options and settings tweaks helped me get past some rather consistent hangs (both IDE AND OS hangs....yes I mean the ENTIRE OS hangs after running VS IDE in debugging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).


I am working normally in  VM/Remote environment thus results may vary , especially if you  are in a local / laptop / SSD environment.


OS Freezing
1. If in RDP, disconnect all other users / sessions to reduce concurrency conflict with MUTREX's that MS just loves to use across several intrinsic applications such as the Help system and Language settings. Fort more info / tech info see this great reference:

Why the Visual Studio debugger occasionally locks up the entire Windows GUI

http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=118




VS IDE/OS Freezes
2.   Tweak VS Debugging options

 

• Tools -> Options
• Go To Debugging -> Symbols
• Uncheck all of the listed symbol file locations
   
   
  
   
  Clean Environment:

1. Run devenv /Resetsettings to eliminate the cause of corrupted settings.
2. Run devenv /ResetSkipPkgs in Command Prompt.
3. Run devenv /Safemode to see if you can apply it correctly. This can eliminate the possibility that third party Add-ins or packages are causing problems.
4. Open your solution in Safemode and see whether it works.
    
   Disable