There are plenty of different Add-Ins for Visual Studio see Visual Studio Gallery . Please share your experiences and favorites.
As motivation, here are some of my favorites:
- Versioning Controlled Build [F/O] - very handy extension for automatic build numbering
- SlickEdit Gadgets [F] - useful editor gadget, build-in file explorer ...
- SlickEdit Tools [C] - editing and versioning tools
- Refactor! for C++ [F/C] - C++ code refactoring like C#
- WiX [F/O] - making windows installer setups using XML
- AnkhSVN [F/O] - use subversion from inside of your IDE
- Visual Leak Detector [F/O] - helper for debug problems
- Parasoft C++test [C] - suite for code quality assurance
- Parasoft Insure++ [C] - runtime memory analysis
- RockScroll [F] - helper for scrolling in long files
- Axialis IconWorkshop [F/C] - icon and bitmap editor
- PowerCommands [F] - adds some useful commands onto the context menu
- IncrediBuild [C] - speedup your build process
- Workspace Whiz [F/C] - many useful add-ins
- Consolas Font Pack [F] - very nice font for programming
- Intel Parallel Studio [C] - Intel optimized C/C++ compiler analyser and debug-helper
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements [F] - only for VS2005, Outliner / C++ Snippets /...
- codekana [F] - very similar with Visual Assist
- Visual Local History [F] - local file history à la Eclipse
- ResOrg [F] - Manage and Renumber Resource Symbol IDs
- PVS-Studio [C] - static code analyzer, especially 64-bit code analysis (Viva64)
- ASP.NET/HTML Spell Checker for VS [F] - spell checker.
Tools
- Ranorex [C] - GUI testing and automation framework
- OneTime [F/C] - Software project management
- CppCheck [F/O] - Static analysis of C/C++ code
- Online GUID Generator [F] - in case you need a GUID
- WinMerge [F] - file / directory comparing
- codepad [F] - online compiler
- Cilk++ [F/C] - optimize your application for multicore processors
- Microsoft Application Verifier [F] - runtime verification tool for native code
- SourceMonitor [F] - simple code metrics measurement tool
- WinUnit [F] - nice unit testing for native (C/C++) code on Windows
- Very Sleepy [F] - simple code profiling tool
- Visual Sidekick [P] - effective but cheap incremental search over symbols and files
- CodeAnalyst [F] - code profiling tool from AMD (also partially works on Intel)
- Sisulizer [C] - Visual Software Localization Tool
- Innovasys HelpStudio Lite [F/C] - create Microsoft Help 2.x help systems.
For coffe break
- Powder Toy [F] - build thrilling simulations yourself
- OE-CAKE [F/C] - build fluid simulations yourself.
Your suggestions:
- ViEmu [C] - VI emulation
- Visual Assist [C] - "La Crème de la Crème"
- VisualSVN [C] - very nice SVN provider
- Visual Lint [C] - advanced static code analysis
- VSFileExplorer [F] - self explaining
- P/Invoke [F] - helps to find native code signatures for managed code.
[F] - freeware [O] - open source [C] - commercial.