The C++ team is happy to announce the completion of a highly upvoted C++ feedback ticket from Developer Community – Low Priority Builds. With your feedback and collaboration from our partner teams, you can now start Low Priority Builds within Visual Studio. This will ensure the MSBuild node spawns with a lower priority, affecting all compile and link processes. If the build is affecting you from having a responsive work environment, then this is the feature for you!

Internally, VS interfaces with MSBuild like a service. The MSBuild team has added new API functionality to switch the priority of the MSBuild nodes. Starting in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.3 Preview 1, a new option under the Tools -> Options -> “Projects and Solutions” -> “Build And Run” -> “Run build at low process priority” allows you to lower the priority of the your next builds. If a MSBuild node is already running with the previous priority, then give them a few minutes to time out or restart the IDE to close them.

For building directly on the command line, use msbuild.exe -lowPriority or -low for similar effect.

Try out low-priority MSBuild tasks by downloading the latest Visual Studio 2022 Preview! Any feedback is welcome. We can be reached via the comments below, Developer Community, reach us via email at [email protected], and Twitter (@VisualC).

For other build performance tips and tools:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/cpp-build-throughput-investigation-and-tune-up/

Thank you,

Felix Huang,
VC++