Disappearing testrunconfig dialog for Code Coverage

Ever had this happen: Whenever you need to make changes to the code coverage settings of a Visual Studio 2008 solution, the “testrunconfig” dialog simply disappears before you get a chance to edit any setting. I’m talking about this dialog:

an clicking the item highlighted with the yellow marker.

Martin Platt mentions this is because of certain custom project templates) and mentions the BizTalk and Reporting Services project templates.

The Database projects from the Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition (aka DataDude) are also culprits of closing the dialog. This is for the VS2008 SKU of Database with the GDR release.

The workaround is to right-click the database projects and choosing Unload Project from the context menu, you c/should be able to visit the Code Coverage section again. If other project types are in the way, you may have to unload those as well. Once you have made the changes you can reload the projects if necessary.

The bug has been filed at Microsoft Connect and appears to be related to another issue regarding empty unit tests. That issue has been fixed in KB962866, but also fixes the disappearing dialog problem. You can get the hotfix from the Code Gallery.