Disabling ReSharper

What? Why would anyone want to do that? In my case, I am building a class (as in teach a class) for TDD that uses only Visual Studio native tools.

So, how do I disable resharper to make sure I don’t get any pesky resharper files into my directory structure? By using Visual Studio’s Add-In manager.

1. In Visual Studio go to Tools > Add-in Manager.
2. Uncheck the ReSharper 4 Add-in and then unselect the Startup box so that when you start up VS the next time, the Add-in won’t load.

Not so fast, Gerome! Turns out that when ReSharper installed, it installed in such a way as to make this impossible. The fix is easy.

In your ReSharper Program Files directory, JetBrains\ReSharper\v4.0\Bin, find the Product.VisualStudio.90.AddIn file. Visual Studio needs to be able to modify this file and the installer laid in down read only. Make the file write-able and go back to VS and go through the process again. This time you will be able to turn off startup.

Even after doing this, the ReSharper menu remains in my IDE, which bugs me. All of the functionality is disabled and the context features in the code files are gone, but still…