Ctrl-Tab Shortcut Issue in Visual Studio 2013

Question

I recently upgraded from Visual Studio 2012 to 2013 and I am having issues with the Ctrl+Tab shortcut. It normally works perfectly for a bit when I first open a solution, but then stops. When it stops the dialog does not show up unless I hold Ctrl+Tab for a few seconds. When I do this the dialog flickers very quickly and then finally comes up. There have been times when it flickers, but never shows steadily.

I have checked to make sure it is not the keyboard and that the Ctrl+Tab works fine in Chrome when it is not working in Visual Studio. If I restart Visual Studio I get the same experience where it works at first and then stops.

I am using Resharper 8.0.2, however I don't think that is affecting anything.

Answer 1

You could try checking to see if your anti-virus/mal-ware protection software is actively scanning C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe.

After upgrading to VS2013, we managed to considerably improve the IDE's responsiveness by adding an exclusion for this file.  In our case, AVG's malicious behaviour scanning caused even simple keyboard operations, such as CTRL+TAB between screens, to take an age.

Answer 2

Do you have text-to-speech narrator enabled? To fix this, just uncheck all checkboxes under "Text-To-Speech" narrator software.

--> To open Narrator using the keyboard, press CTRL+ESC, press R, type narrator, and then press Enter.

This should fix your problem.

Answer 3

I think you might solve your issue with the following info:

Under certain conditions, the navigator window gets "stuck" and doesn't close when you release Ctrl - you'll need to manually close it by making a selection or closing the navigator. This behavior occurs under the following conditions:

1) The registry value HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio[version]\General\NavigatorIsSticky is set to 1 2) Sticky keys are enabled in Windows 3) The SPI_GETSCREENREADER flag is set in Windows, which can be caused either by an actual screen reader, or by certain tools like Inspect.exe or AccEvent.exe from the Windows SDK

For condition 1 or 2, simply deleting the registry key or disabling sticky keys should solve the problem. I experienced condition 3, most likely from one of the mentioned tools failing to unset the flag properly.

Though the source talks about different issue, it may point to the same outcome you've encountered. if method 1 and 2 don't solve your issue , go to the source below and implement the described code.

Source: http://tilt.carr.no/Post/12/visual-studio-ide-navigator-stuck

I hope it will address your issue...

Update if all fails , I point you to the following issue in SuperUser: https://superuser.com/questions/816661/ctrltab-not-working-in-any-programs