I export my settings in Visual Studio and if I ever move to a new machine or have problems, I use those backed up settings to restore Visual Studio to the way I like it. It also allows me to maintain a consistent development environment between the various machines that I use.
This works great for keybindings, syntax highlighting, user tools, pretty much everything except for the toolbar locations and customizations. Whenever I move to a new machine and restore the settings, the toolbars are not affected. I have spent a fair amount of time setting up toolbars with my macros, external tools, etc and cut'n'pasted icons in for them. I hate losing all that work.
Does anybody know how to back up and restore the toolbars' locations and customizations? If it is not a feature of Visual Studio, is there an addin that will do the job?
Edit
As mentioned below, the Menu and Command Bar Customizations in Import and Export Settings is supposed to do this, but when I re-import my previous settings, I get
Error 1: Menu and Command Bar Customizations: The version of command bar settings being imported is not supported. All the command bar settings have been ignored.
The settings I am trying to re-import were exported earlier this month with the same version of Visual Studio. The only difference is that I am now running 64 bit as opposed to x86. I didn't think that would make a difference though since the settings files are XML.
Any ideas?
I have finally found the solution to this. There is a known bug in Visual Studio and there are two workarounds given. The first workaround does not apply, but the second worked.
To Backup your toolbars:
Copy the file CmdUI.PRF from the path %AppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\X.Y\1033 to the same directory as your exported .settings file.
where X.Y is either of 8.0, 9.0, 10.0 or 11.0 depending on your visual studio version (2005, 2008, 2010 and 2012 respectively).
To Restore your toolbars:
Make sure Visual Studio is closed and copy the backed up file back to the original location.
For the benefit of others, as you mentioned this feature doesn't seem to be supported across versions of Visual Studio, presumably because of a change in the DTD/XSD for the settings file? At any rate, here's where the settings for your custom toolbars lie in the "Import and Export Settings..." dialog:
Note: Your options may look different, depending on the settings you exported.
I have not tried it, but "Tools\Import and Export Settings..." maybe will let you export a .vssettings file you can then take to another box.
See also
http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2005/04/19/409887.aspx
and other Sara 'export' tips.
Related
Is there any way to export the coloring rules for the Productivity Power Tools's component: Custom Well?
I have quite a sophisticated configuration and it's always a pain to move it to another computer or to the new version of Visual Studio.
I have tried to export this particular setting using the Import and Export Settings of Visual Studio, but cannot locate it there. At he same time, I would prefer not to export/import all the VS settings.
I guess that would be a simple copy paste of one file, but not sure where to look for it.
Copy pasting row by row is the last resort, as for each of the colors you need to manually choose it in the picker (terrible design).
After further research I have found out that the color/regex settings are stored within the registry, under:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\DialogPage\Microsoft.CustomDocWell.Options\Colors
(for Visual Studio 2015; for the earlier versions, change 14.0 to the desired version number). Those registry settings can be simply exported/imported as any other.
However, the situation differs with the Visual Studio 2017, where the registry structure has been changed. The keys are still there, but it gets a bit more complex to get there. You can read more on the topic here:
https://visualstudioextensions.vlasovstudio.com/2017/06/29/changing-visual-studio-2017-private-registry-settings/
In VS 2017, you'll have to follow the instructions in
https://visualstudioextensions.vlasovstudio.com/2017/06/29/changing-visual-studio-2017-private-registry-settings/
given by mikus, then the Regex will be in the key like:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\_TMPVS_15.0_116e7493\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_116e7493\DialogPage\Microsoft.CustomDocWell.Options\Colors
But NOTE : you may have to add a new regex in visual studio options (Productivity Power Tools -> Custom Document Well -> Color Coding) before this key shows up.
Picture says it all, it should currently be showing a file but as you can see its having issues drawing the content of the file.
I have unloaded all addons and restart visual studio.
If it mathers the previus project was a VS 2k8.
New Info:
If i wait a good 5min ( I have a Quad core I7 with 6gb ram, 295gtx. VS is running from a SSD).
It will load the text, but im unable to "edit", as it will have loaded some document (.cs ) but when i select the one i want to edit it not realy open that file.
It can best be described as visual studio having a 5min lag.
I had this precise bug. I would open files from the solution explorer but the editor window would either not appear, only 1-2 lines of 100+ line files would display, or the file would display but I could not scroll or otherwise edit the file. Some parts of VS were working, i.e. little tooltips would appear if I moused over the right part of the (invisible) text but I obviously couldn't do much in this state.
I have a lot of VS stuff installed so I thought it was some sort of plugin or extension that was causing things to go screwy. These installed items include:
Visual Studio 2010 10.0.30319.1
ReSharper 5.1.3000.12 (JetBrains)
DevExpress DXCore 10.1.5 (free community edition)
DX Source Outliner (reason for DXCore, from sbohlen)
Tabs Studio 2.0.6 (www.tabsstudio.com)
Productivity Power Tools 10.0.11019.3 (Microsoft)
Snippet Designer 1.3.0 (Matt Manela)
I solved it (2/18/2011) by Tools... Extension Manager... disabling the Productivity Power Tools and Snippet Designer. No idea what was going on but this fixed it for me and I was back to work. Probably something in the system drawing and/or display options.
EDIT
The issue continues. Unfortunately it is intermittent and I have not be able to reproduce it reliably. Now the suspects are the BugShooting and CaptureWiz screen capture tools. I've had the behavior show up and then disappear in and around the time of logging bugs with them.
2nd EDIT
The issue continually continues. I have not yet been able to determine the cause but usually quitting VS and restarting resolves the issue(s). Other parts of the behavior includes the menu options (File, Edit, View, etc.) not operating properly as they show only the highlight but not the actual menu items. The solution will build and run just fine, but things still won't show up properly.
I had a similar issue whereby VS2012 was telling me that I had active (open) files, but the text editor was not displaying them. Clicking on the file(s) in the solution explorer seemingly did nothing. Alt + Tab just cycled through the open files, but still, nothing rendered on screen.
I solved it by clicking on the "WINDOW" menu item and then"Close All Documents". Visual Studio then behaved as expected and opened (and rendered) the files correctly.
This bug was created by mumble 1.2.x, but is fixed in the snapshot versions of 1.3.x. YOu can likely get simular bugs by other software that does DirectX overlay.
I had the same issue in Visual Studio 2012. It was fixed by running a repair of Visual Studio 2012 via Add/ Remove Programs.
The following had no effect:
Closing and reopening a solution
Opening different file types
Restarting Visual Studio
Adding and removing plugins
Resetting options via the 'Reset all Settings' option in Visual Studio's 'Import and Export Settings'
Rebooting windows
I had this problem in Visual Studio 2013. Problem was: extension "Regex Tester". I had to uninstall this extension.
For example, when I write:
string x = "turtle";
x.Go();
There is no red squiggly line detecting the absence of the Go() method on String.
Only when I compile does the error get detected.
I've just upgraded to Windows 7, I have Visual Studio 2008.
In my old environment the errors were detected before the actual compile.
Is there a setting that I am missing?
EDIT: "Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> C# -> Underline errors in the editor" is checked.
I dont have the "Live Semantic" option. Maybe I need to go to SP1?
You need to turn on the underline errors in the editor and show live semantic errors options in Visual Studio.
These options can be found here:
Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced > Editor Help
Edit: You will need to install SP1 for this functionality to work.
Select Tool -> Options, then Text Editor. Under the language you are using (ie C#), go to the Advanced and make sure the Underline errors in the editor and Show live semantic errors are checked
Stop the project.
Open Folder Project.
Delete .vs folder (he is a hidden folder)
Then restart Visual Studio
EDIT:
This approach has been around since the 2012 version of Visual Studio. This folder consists of keeping all breakpoint information and other settings saved. It is not known why, the configurations arrive at a time when the errors of compilations no longer appear. Deleting the .vs folder will "reset" your breakpoints forcing you to do them again if you need to.
For visual studio 2015 and higher:
Go to: Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced > Editor Help
Then select: Enable Full solution analysis
I had the same issue and had SP1 installed and had Underline errors in the editor and Show live semantic errors checked in VS2008's options.
My solution was to download Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Installer) and re-install the package. It wasn't classified as a 'repair' or a 're-install' despite the fact it was already installed, but it worked.
Restarting VS solved my problem once.
my solution; I know it won't help like 80% of the viewers, but for the sake of who it will:
i have had a lot of noise in the IOS part of the solution, a VS bug that showed a lot of errors that weren't supposed to appear, so I just deleted the IOS part because I didn't really needed it as I didn't even had a Mac server to test it on... Something happened after that and the squiggly line returned! Seriously, VS team, fix your bugs...
JavaScript Type Checking
Sometimes type checking your JavaScript code can help you spot mistakes you might have not caught otherwise. You can run the TypeScript type checker against your existing JavaScript code by simply adding a // #ts-check comment to the top of your file.
// #ts-nocheck
let easy = true;
easy = 42;
Tip: You can also enable the checks workspace or application wide by adding "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true to your workspace or user settings and explicitly ignoring files or lines using // #ts-nocheck and // #ts-ignore. Check out the docs on JavaScript in VS Code to learn more.
In my case the problem was that I created a file with .s extension instead of .cs an then changed the extension to .cs once it was created.
I deleted it and created again correctly and now VS is underlining the errors in this file.
I use the java IDE IntelliJ IDEA and one of the features I like is that there's no saving. Everything's always saved and you just use history navigation. I tend to have both editors open and I'm always forgetting to save in VS.
I'm running vs 2008 with resharper 4.5 but as far as I can tell this isn't achievable or configurable.
Any suggestions?
For VS 2019, the Auto Save File extension seems to work as expected.
It saves individual files on lost focus, can save all files when VS loses focus and can also save all after an inactivity delay.
In VS 2015, I used to use NoMorePanicSave2015.
It does an equivalent of Ctrl+Shift+S when Visual Studio loses focus, which saves all your files, including solution and projects.
Another plugin: CBAutoSave
This extension can automatically save modified documents, projects, and the solution whenever Visual Studio loses focus.
Saving of modified documents is on by default, while automatically saving projects and the solution is not. All options are configurable through the Visual Studio options dialog.
In VS2017/19 Community there is Auto-Recover option under tools->options->autorecover. It will not autosave unless there is a crash, so it may be a good compromise.
In VS2019 its under tools->Options->Environment-AutoRecover.
how-to-auto-save-work-on-visual-studio
Visual Studio 2008 will probably be the same:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/programming/configure-autosave-autorecovery-of-crashed-projects-in-visual-studio-2005/
However, it's not "no saving" but you can set it down to 1 minute.
Visual Studio 17.2 can now automatically save code documents whenever the application loses focus. This feature can be accessed via Tools > Options > Environment > Document.
There is an autosave, but I must admit that it doesn't seem to always work for me - notably I suspect that it only saves files, but not projects/solutions, or the .user and .suo files. I don't have any links to prove this mind you.
Visual Studio 2022 (Enterprise) has auto save option. But you have to enable it.
Navigate from Tools > Options > Environment > Preview Features and Enable the autosave.
here is a screenshot
My Visual Studio (2008) Editor has stopped to underline Errors (this nifty wavy red lines). I can't really tell when, but it can be related to the installation of .Net Framework 3.5 SP 1 or the MVC Beta (which I guess is unlikely). Furthermore have I installed and uninstalled both CodeRush and Resharper for evaluation purposes (decided not to keep either one of them).
Does anyone know the problem and how to restore this functionality again?
Have you checked Tools→Options...→Text Editor→C#→Advanced→Underline errors in the editor?
I usually like to reset my settings after messing around with plugins, as they tend to mess with settings: Tools→Import and Export Settings...→Reset all settings.
About possible causes.
For VS 2012 and 2013 if you have more than one instance of Visual Studio on different machines binded to one "live" account and have installed ReSharper on one of them, it disables the native IntelliSense and error underlines (to replace by it's own rules) that will be synchronised through your account to another machine without ReSharper.
Found it in Visual Studio 2019 as: Tools > Options > Text Editor > General > Show error squiggles
This is generally called Disable Squiggly or Wavy lines in Visual Studio.
How you will do in Visual studio 2013?
TOOLS -> Options... -> Text Editor -> C/C++ -> Advanced -> Disable Squiggles: True/False (Under IntelliSense) -> Press OK
I know its an old question, and with various solutions, but I have fixed it in different way. I'm working with Unity3D on my C# code using VS2017, when suddenly VS decides to stop underlining error while im typing. However, if I close the file tab and reopen, it suddenly undelines the error.
For example:
class A {
public int x;
s;
}
should obvsiouly give an error for that lonely 's' symbol. But, VS doesn't underline it until I close and reopen this file tab.
Solution:
Copied the entire Unity Project folder (which is like a regular VS Solution folder basically) and worked with the new folder, which issue was gone there.
For visual studio 2017 act according to HeeJae's comments in:
https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/113112/design-time-error-checking-isnt-working.html
i.e:
Hi. you are probably hitting a known issue. can you try this?
1.Update to latest release If that doesn’t solve it
2.Go to Tools\Options\Projects and Solutions\General and uncheck “Allow parallel project initialization”.
3.Close VS.
4.Delete the “.vs” directory beside their solution file.
5.Reopen VS.
..
thank you
You can re-enable the "Allow parallel project initialization" option after the issue was solved.
I tried to upgrade VS, reset VS settings, clear VS cache and everything people do conventionally but none of them solved this issue! At the end the mentioned solution worked for me magically.
Good luck
Unloading and loading same project again from the solution does the trick. Just right click on the project and click "Unload Project". Once unloaded, again right click the same project and click "Reload Project". Error highlighting will return.
I had the same issue with 2017. There was a 'disable intelisense' option, make sure that is set to false.
For everyone wondering in 2021..
search for "C_Cpp.errorSquiggles" in the settings.
Make sure to have it active for the user, as well as the workspace.
No need to restart Visual Studio.
For me (VS 2019) , after trying the other answers also, setting the scope of analysis from "Current document" to Open document" brought back the missing error markers
Just go to settings and search for errors and Image in Error Squiggles. You can see the Error squiggles (Modified: Workspace - Right now you can't see it because I modified it). Just click on modified and you will see the disabled option. If by mistake you disabled it, just enable it and you can see the red line errors again in your code.
In latest edition, check for .vscode folder in same project folder. There will be a setting.json file in that. Delete the key value pair of "C_Cpp.errorSquiggles": "Disabled". Restart the vs code.