Apart from these ones, other thing that I dislike a lot of SP1 of Visual Studio is that it has changed the editing experience of “ByVal” in the VB.NET code editor.
While in “classic” VB6 “ByRef” was the default and “ByVal” was required to pass parameters by value, in VB.NET it’s the opposite: “ByVal” is the default and “ByRef” is required to pass parameters by reference. However, until VS 2010 SP1, the VB.NET code editor always added “ByVal” when typing or when generating code (like in the parameters of event handlers).
My first alarm sign was reading:
Visual Basic Editor
in the Description of Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1. And indeed, after installing SP1, “ByVal” was not inserted when typing parameters in VB.NET. I tried to find some setting in the Options window to get back the old behavior, to no avail. I e-mailed the program managers who changed this behavior, which in turn introduced me the developer, and they confirmed that there is no setting (and no plans) to get the old behavior in the VB.NET code editor. So, after applying SP1:
1) If you like the old style, you have to type “ByVal” on your own.
2) Likely you will end with inconsistent styles in your VB.NET code, sometimes using “ByVal” (old code) and sometimes missing it (new code).
These irreversible changes of behavior is not what I expect from a service pack (I expect it to fix bugs, not to introduce issues). This should deserve a setting (opt-in) for those people who want to get rid of “ByVal”, and let the people who want the old behavior as they are.