Hiding XAML designer by default

I hate Visual Studio 2008 XAML Designer. It’s slow and can be easily killed (I mean XAML Designer can’t be displayed, just an error message instead). I prefer Expression Blend 3 for GUI design.

So here are the steps to hide the designer and go straight to the text editor:

1. Open Tools/Options
2. Select Text Editor/XAML/Miscellaneous
3. Under ‘Default View’ select ‘Always open documents in full XAML view’

After setting this option, you will still be able to change to designer using a tab, but the editor will be the default view for XAML files. Faster loading an (hopefully) less crashes.