Drag and Drop of Files from Windows to Visual Studio not Working?

Do you ever drag and drop files from a Windows Explorer into Visual Studio running on Windows Vista? And have you noticed that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't? When it doesn't work, Visual Studio shows the "stop" icon when you drag the files over the Solution Explorer. I ran into that issue a lot and it was driving me nuts....

Not a Bug...

Today I finally decided to file a bug for it on Microsoft Connect in the hopes it could be fixed some day. Before I filed the bug I searched the existing issues to see if others had reported the same problem already. And then I found this. Turns out, it's not a bug but it's by design. When you are running Visual Studio with administrative privileges it runs in a different security context than the Windows Explorer process. Windows then prohibits the two processes from communicating with each other.

There's no way around this other than turning off User Account Control.

Now at least I know what's causing this which makes it easier to work around or live with it.

Check out the reported issue on the Microsoft Connect site.


Where to Next?

Wonder where to go next? You can post a comment on this article.

Doc ID 495
Full URL https://imar.spaanjaars.com/495/drag-and-drop-of-files-from-windows-to-visual-studio-not-working
Short cut https://imar.spaanjaars.com/495/
Written by Imar Spaanjaars
Date Posted 07/02/2009 15:30

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