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Visual Studio 2022 Not Responding after adding ContextMenu

Lance Boudreaux 0 Reputation points
2025-06-26T13:51:58.9733333+00:00

I'm using VS 2022 v17.14.7 developing a WinForms app using .Net 8.0 and C#.

When I add a ContextMenu to any form and try to add a menu item under it, Visual Studio stops responding and has to be killed via the Task Manager.

This also happens when using a Toolbar or TabControl although these will work for some time and then suddenly freeze VS. Once this happens, they have to be manually removed from the designer file before viewing the designer or VS will freeze.

Developer technologies | Windows Forms
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  1. Surya Amrutha Vaishnavi Lanka (INFOSYS LIMITED) 245 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff
    2025-07-28T06:23:15.9566667+00:00

    Here are some steps to try

    1. Try to use ContextMenuStrip instead of ContextMenu
    2. Assign it to your control yourControl.ContextMenuStrip = contextMenuStrip1;
    3. If Visual Studio is already freezing: ➤ Close Visual Studio. ➤ Open the .Designer.cs file in another editor (like Notepad++ or VS Code). ➤ Delete the lines that mention ContextMenu, Toolbar, or TabControl. ➤ Save the file and reopen your project in Visual Studio.
    4. Update Visual Studio ➤ Go to Help > Check for Updates in Visual Studio. ➤ Install the latest updates.

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