Just found a solution to something that have confused and annoyed for a while.
In VB.NET the current configuration (Debug/Release) is not shown. This is quite confusing if you are setting properties on a project, for instance. Which configuration are you setting the property for?
Here is the solution; it turns out that VB.NET is hiding the configuration for you by default. So to show them again go: Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->Show advanced build configurations.