There are many suggestions available on internet to improve the visual studio performance. Following are some of those.

Visual Studio 2010 runs faster when the Windows Automation API 3.0 is installed for (non Win7 users)Applications that use Windows Automation APIs can significantly decrease Microsoft Visual Studio IntelliSense performance if Windows Automation API 3.0 is not installed. For example, the Windows pen and touch services can significantly decrease Visual Studio IntelliSense performance if Windows Automation API 3.0 is not installed. Refer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981741This might help atmel studio to run faster at XP machine. In blogs, many saying this update improved the visual studio performance.

Download information

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center: 

Update for all supported x86-based versions of Windows Server 2003

Download the Update for Windows Server 2003 for x86-based systems package now.

Update for all supported x64-based versions of Windows Server 2003

Download the Update for Windows Server 2003 for x64-based systems package now.

Update for all supported x86-based versions of Windows Server 2008

Download the Update for Windows Server 2008 for x86-based systems package now.

Update for all supported x64-based versions of Windows Server 2008

Download the Update for Windows Server 2008 for x64-based systems package now.

Update for all supported x86-based versions of Windows Vista

Download the Update for Windows Vista for x86-based systems package now.

Update for all supported x64-based versions of Windows Vista

Download the Update for Windows Vista for x64-based systems package now.

Update for all supported x86-based versions of Windows XP

Download the Update for Windows XP for x86-based systems package now.Note Customers who cannot install the update can set the following registry key to prevent the notification from being displayed:[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\General]

"UIAOverride"=dword:00000001Notes The integrated installation of this package may function incorrectly when you use the procedures that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:828930 How to integrate software updates into your Windows installation source files

This is a known issue. If Microsoft releases a software update to resolve this problem, this article will be updated with additional information.

Startup speedup

Tools > Options > Environment >

Add-in/Macros Security -- UNCHECK "Allow Add-in components to load"

Tools > Options > Environment > Startup>

At startup = "Show empty environment"

Tools > Options > Source Control (if user doesn’t want to use integrated svn)

Set to "None"

Performance Improvement

Tools > Options > Environment >

Uncheck "Automatically adjust visual experience based on client performance" then uncheck "Enable rich client visual experience".

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Disable Track changes

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If track change is enabled then text editor will show you changes made (refer below Image3). If user doesn’t want this can disable it.

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Disable Track Active Item in SolutionExplorerTools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions -> General ->

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Force studio garbage collection - Studio is a big product, with contributions coming from many different teams, and languages. A big part of Studio is written in managed language, and there are 3rd party components that you can download and install from the Studio Gallery that are also written in managed languages. Sometimes it is quite helpful to force the runtime to garbage collect.

Image5Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F12 (twice)

Exclude the studio related directories from virus scanner. Most importantly, exclude the

atmelstudio.exe file.

Visual Studio 10 shell requires a lot of swap space. Increase the paging file. Also put the system to maximize performance. Both options are found in System Properties >> Performance >> Settings. It is worth to increase the page file size.