I’ve been doing a lot of LINQ works at the moment, and naturally database schema changes quite regularly.  Table fields added, deleted or changed, etc. So far the only way I know to refresh my dbml file is by deleting the table from the designer and drag a new one back from the server explorer.  Obviously after a few of this excercise, I got really annoyed, and started thinking to myself “I can’t believe that Microsoft didn’t think about how to make this operation easier”.  But looking around for this ‘Refresh’ button on Visual Studio was proven to be a waste of time, it just simply doesn’t exist !

Still with curiosity and determination to find a better way, I scoured the Internet to look for a definitive answer, just in case I missed something.

To short answer to the above question is a resounding NO. Cor Blimey !

There is an alternative though, but only if you want to pay for it :)  On some of the forums where this question was asked, there always this guy who keep promoting his add-in for Visual Studio 2008 which apparently does exactly what we need.

I still can’t believe that Microsoft would missed such an important thing.  Oh .. well … it is Microsoft after all.