Multiple settings files generated by custom tools

A day lost due to this problem

Whenever a custom tool runs in our solution it generates a second, third, fourth designer file. So for exampe, adding a new project setting, adding something in one of the datasets in the project.

So under settings node, show all files you end up with having edited three things;
Settings1.Designer.cs
Settings2.Designer.cs
Settings3.Designer.cs

This then causes compile errors as we have duplicate code generated.

  • Even creating a new project in the solution, the new project suffers the same problem.
  • The project is under source control, Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio is 2010, but I’ve seen this when it was the previous Visual Studio 2008.
  • Unbinding the project from source control after creating a new project means the project does not exhibit the problem.

Just like in this post;

Settings1.Designer.cs Bug: Multiple settings files