Visual Studio 2008 keeps on "Updating Intellisense" and freezing even with a one-character change

Question

It did not use to be like this, but it seems to have happened when I uninstalled and re-installed VS 2008.

What happens now is that, whenever I make even a single-character change inside a .cpp file, not only does Intellisense get updated (my CPU is constantly running), but it also freezes the IDE for ~half a minute if:

• I highlight a word during the update period

• I right-click during the update period

• Change the build configuration

I have tried to delete all non-essential files (NCB, PCH, etc.) with no effect.
(And no, I have not #include'd the .cpp file anywhere else, obviously.)

It's important to point out that the freeze does not happen if I do not do the above -- the CPU is still working, but the IDE is responsive.

I've tried to look at VS's thread stack trace and the cause indeed seems to be feacp.dll (Intellisense?) -- I have disabled Visual Assist X through the plugin manager and I do not see it (or any other plugin) anywhere in the stack trace.

Does anyone know of any fixes for this?

Answer 1

You'll have to disable intellisense by renaming or deleting feacp.dll in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcpackages