Check for publisher's certificate revocation slowing down diffmerge.exe

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(Chinese Version) 

A customer of mine reported that they experienced remarkable performance drawback in Team Explorer 2008 compared to Team Explorer 2005, when using the Team Explorer 2008 default compare feature in a closed network(with no access to the internet). This can be easily reproduced: select a file in the source control view->view history->choose a changeset->in “source control” tab, select the file, then right click & choose “compare->with previous version”.

Observation shows:

l In Team Explorer2005 diffmerge.exe launches within 2~3 seconds, regardless of the network state.

l In Team Explorer 2008, if the computer is connected to the internet, diffmerge starts up as fast as in TE2005. However if the computer is in a closed network, the tool takes 13+ seconds to appear.

Network monitor trace shows diffmerge.exe 9.0 tries to connect to “crl.microsoft.com” at startup. This post https://blogs.msdn.com/alimaz/archive/2008/10/16/check-for-publisher-s-certificate-revocation-slowing-down-sharepoint.aspx gives a very good explanation to the cause and the solution. It applies to a wide range of managed applications including diffmerge.exe. Thank you, Ali.