Tuesday 23 August 2011

How to set common paths in VS2010

"VC++ Directories change" paragraph in Visual Studio 2010 C++ Project Upgrade Guide says:

VC++ Directories are no longer supported in VS2010 through Tools->Options page. Instead, VS2010 introduces the user settings file (Microsoft.cpp..users.props) to control global settings including Global search path. These files are located at $(USERPROFILE)\appdata\local\microsoft\msbuild\v4.0 directory. Upon migration to VS2010, the custom settings of VC++ Directories from VS2005 or VS2008 are migrated to these user files. These global settings files are imported into all the converted and newly created projects.

Here are the steps to change the settings file through UI:

  • Open up property manager by clicking on View.Property Manager.
  • Expand the project node and then the Configuration|Platform nodes, you will see "Microsoft.cpp..users" file for each Configuration|Platform. These are the files for the global settings, similar to the old tools/Options/VC++ Directories.
  • Multi-Select "Microsoft.cpp..users", right click and bring up the property page window
  • In the property page window, click on "VC++ Directories" (for example) in the left pane, add new paths for the directories such as "Include Directories". separated by semicolons
  • Make sure to save the settings before shutting down Visual Studio.
  • Re-launch Visual Studio and the new settings will be in effect.


Note: If you would like to only change the settings for one project, you can right click on the project and bring up the property page. Change the settings for “VC++ Directories”, these settings will be persisted to the project file.

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