Disable Add-ins on Start-Up by holding the Left-Shift key down
If you ever want to disable add-ins from starting on launch, you can hold down the Left-Shift key while VS is loading. If you find yourself running into random crashes, you might want to try disabling add-ins (either by this Left-Shift method or going to the Tools – Add-in Manager) to determine if it is a VS issue or an Add-in issue. You’ll still be able to manually restart your Add-in during this VS session.
If you are seeing random VS crashes and you have Add-ins installed, the Visual Studio Team on the MSDN Forums would love to know if disabling add-ins had any effect on the crashes.
For any questions related to Add-ins, please check out the Extensibility Forums!
Got an Add-in Tip? Submit it here!
Happy Visual Studio’ing!