I've discovered the source of a performance frustration I've had with VS 2005 ever since I started using it at work. I didn't realize there was an option to turn off background VSS tasks. Occasionally, our servers at work really slow down. When this happens, VS 2005 seems to lock up inexplicably. It turns out VSS tasks are running often in the back ground. Really often. About every five to 15 seconds it seems, based on IP logging. I have a solution with about 80 components. The overhead to continuously update the VSS icons is considerable. The figure belows illustrates what to change: