Angular2 'recompile' slow. Visual Studio 2015. Task-Runner. Typescript

Question

Issue: Making any changes (including just adding a space) to my Angular2 project Typescript files takes almost 3 minutes to 'recompile' before the Web Browser refreshes and the changes are shown. This slows overall develop to a crawl.

Background:
    Using Visual Studio 2015 running on Amazon WorkSpace with 2 cores and 8GB of memory. 
    Using Task Runner Explorer (start from package.json).
    Created a dummy project with source code from
        angular.io (Heros project).
        todomvc.com (ToDo list).
        and dummy Test component.


This is a tiny project, but still takes almost 3 minutes to 'recompile'. Below is the Task Runner log showing that it takes almost 3 minutes to 'recompile' even though i only added a single space to heroes.component.ts file.
By comparison, I have an asp.net project on the same machine (vb.net) with hundreds of files and it compiles in seconds.

I tried disabling Trend Micro real time virus scanner but that didn't seem to have any effect.

Question: Is this normal behavior?! How can I get this running fast?

[0] 13:11:07 - File change detected. Starting incremental compilation...
[1] [BS] File changed: app\dashboard.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\hero-detail.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\todo.store.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\todo.component.js
[0] 13:11:17 - Compilation complete. Watching for file changes.
[1] [BS] File changed: app\test.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\app.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\main.js
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:07 304 GET /index.html
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:10 304 GET /styles.css
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:14 304 GET /app/main.ts
[1] [BS] File changed: app\hero.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\mock-heroes.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\hero.service.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\dashboard.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\hero-detail.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\heroes.component.js
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:20 304 GET /app/app.component.ts
[1] [BS] File changed: app\todo.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\todo.store.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\test.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\app.component.js
[1] [BS] File changed: app\main.js
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:23 304 GET /app/hero.service.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:23 304 GET /app/dashboard.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:24 304 GET /app/hero-detail.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:24 304 GET /app/todo.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:24 304 GET /app/todo.store.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:26 304 GET /index.html
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:27 304 GET /app/test.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:27 304 GET /app/mock-heroes.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:29 304 GET /styles.css
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:33 304 GET /app/main.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:11:38 304 GET /app/app.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:25 304 GET /app/hero.service.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:25 304 GET /app/dashboard.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:27 304 GET /app/hero-detail.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:27 304 GET /app/todo.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:43 304 GET /app/todo.store.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:44 200 GET /app/heroes.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:45 200 GET /app/test.component.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:12:46 200 GET /app/mock-heroes.ts
[1] 16.02.29 13:13:11 304 GET /app/app.component.css
[1] 16.02.29 13:13:45 304 GET /app/dashboard.component.html
[1] 16.02.29 13:13:58 304 GET /app/dashboard.component.css

Answer 1

Double check that you have set up the 'exclude' directories correctly in your project. My guess is Visual Studio is trying to transpile everything.

You should have a tsconfig.json file located in your Typescript directory. It should look something like this:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "noImplicitAny": false,
    "noEmitOnError": true,
    "removeComments": false,
    "sourceMap": false,
    "target": "es5",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "outDir": "../wwwroot/app/",
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true
  },
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules",
    "wwwroot"
  ]
}

Also, notice that the outDir is one of the excluded directories.