Locations for user customizations in Visual Studio 2005 or in Visual Studio .NET

When you develop applications by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or Microsoft Visual Studio .NET on multiple computers, you may have to copy user-specific settings from one computer to another. This article describes where customized settings are located and how to copy these settings.

Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio .NET stores user information in many different files. These files are located in many different folders. Depending on your requirements, you can copy these files from one computer to another. The following are various settings and their corresponding locations:

• User Preferences (such as editor settings) that are different from the default settings are stored at the following registry key:
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\*

  
  or
  

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\*
• Environment Profiles (such as window locations, sizes, and toolbox sets) are stored in the following folder:
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\
  or
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\
• Settings for related applications (such as MSDN Library and Debug) are stored in the following folders:
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\MSDN\7.0\
  or
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\MSDN\8.0\
  
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\VSA\7.0\
  or
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\VSA\8.0\
  
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\DbgClr\7.0\
  or
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\DbgClr\8.0\
• For Web projects, local caches are stored in the following folder:
  
  User Profile Path\VsWebCache\Server Name\Project Name
• User settings for a specific application are stored in a Visual Studio Solution User Options (.suo) file. A file of this type is named ApplicationName.suo. This file is stored in the same folder where the ApplicationName.sln file is stored. It is not a good idea to share this file on a source-control system. However, if only one user works on that computer, this file is available with the local copy of the project. You can copy these settings to another computer by copying the .suo file to the corresponding folder when you import the applicable settings.

User Customizations

• Macro project settings such as Show up are not included in the Add Reference dialog box or the Component Selector dialog box. However, you can copy Start page customizations, Dynamic Help additions, add-ins, HTML Designer customizations and wizards to the new computer. By default, macros are stored in the following folder:
  User Profile Path\My Documents\Visual Studio Projects\Vsmacros\MyMacros
• When you click Add Reference in Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio .NET, a short list of components appears. The following folder contains managed assemblies that run in the development environment:
  Visual Studio Install Path\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies
  You can call these assemblies from macros, add-ins, and other user code. The assemblies in this folder appear in the Add Reference dialog box and in the Component Selector dialog box of the Object Browser. For example, you would install COM interoperability wrappers in the PublicAssemblies folder for automation object models. The assembly is Vslangproj.dll.
• Managed assemblies that run in the development environment but are not called from user code are stored in the following folder:
  Visual Studio Install Path\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies
  These assemblies do not appear in the Add Reference dialog box or in the Component Selector dialog box of the Object Browser. For example, you would install managed add-ins or designers in this folder.
• Your personal Toolbox settings are stored in the Toolbox.tbd file in the following folder:
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0
  or
  User Profile Path\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0
  You can customize the Toolbox by right-clicking a tab, and then clicking Add Tab, Delete Tab, Rename Tab, or Customize Toolbox. To make a component appear in the Customize Toolbox dialog box, the component must be a registered COM control, or a .NET control component that is registered in global assembly cache (GAC). For more information about how to build your own control, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ah4293af(VS.71).aspx

  (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ah4293af(VS.71).aspx)
• You can add your own tabs and content to the Start page. These setting are stored in the following file:
  Visual Studio Install Path\Common7\IDE\HTML\1033\Vstab.xdr
  For more information about how to customize the Visual Studio .NET Start page, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa290347.aspx

  (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa290347.aspx)
• You can add your own links to Dynamic Help. These custom links are stored in an XML file in the following folder:
  Visual Studio Install Path\Common7\IDE\HTML\XMLLinks\Locale ID
  For more information about how to add custom links to the Dynamic Help window, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa696248(VS.71).aspx

  (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa696248(VS.71).aspx)
• You can add support for new versions of markup languages such as HTML and XML to the HTML designer. This support is added in the form of a schema file (.xsd). These schema files are located in the following folder (in either the HTML folder or the XML folder, as appropriate):
  Visual Studio Install Path\Common7\Packages\Schemas
  For more information about HTML and XML schema extensibility, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa301576.aspx

  (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa301576.aspx)
• Settings for components such as browsers and default settings of Visual Studio .NET are stored in the following folder:
  User Profile Path\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0
  or
  User Profile Path\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0
  You can create a file named Sysincl.dat that lists the folders that are not included in dependency checking. Any file in a specified folder, or in one of its subfolders, is not included. You can store your Sysincl.dat file in the following folder:
  User Profile Path\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0
  For more information about how to exclude files when dependency checking, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azz1tk4w(VS.71).aspx

  (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azz1tk4w(VS.71).aspx)

For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: