Hi,
We created a VS2010/VS2012 extension that we are installing as an MSI. The extension installs correctly in VS2010. However, when it installs in VS2012 the extension menu does not appear and the extension is missing from the Extension Manager.
I did a little research on this and I found a post that said VS2012 does not scan the extensions directory each time it starts as a performance improvement over VS2010. However, that also means that our new extension is not found until that scan happens. I experimented with this and I am able to get the scan to happen when I install another extension through VSIX or if I run devenv /setup at the command line and then start VS2012.
I found a few registry entries that I think have an impact on whether a scan occurs at start-up or not. They are keys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\ExtensionManager\EnabledExtensions:
ExtensionsChanged
LastCheckForUpdates
These use a date time value in a binary format. Would setting one or both of these values force a rescan of the extension manager when VS2012 starts? Could we set the value to "0" to achieve this? Is there another way to force the extension manager to look for new extensions that we can execute as part of the install process?
Thanks
Jeff