It’s been a while since I had to do it.  However, as I’ve started to need to tweak FetchXML after I’ve built the baseline using my little trick, I realized I was doing things the hard way.  I was looking at the FetchXML reference on MSDN and typing things “notepad" style” but with syntax highlighting.  Then I had that “DUH” moment.  Just point the file to the FetchXML schema in the SDK and you’ll get intellisense.  Here’s how:

Take a look at the Properties of your XML file in Visual Studio:

In the Properties pane, click on the ellipsis (…) for the Schemas property:

Click the Add… button:

Find the fetch.xsd file that’s in the schemas folder of wherever you unzipped the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Software Development Kit (SDK) and click the Open button:

Now you have XML intellisense for your FetchXML:

@devkeydet