What are your most-recommended Visual Studio preferences?

Question

There are so many little options and settings within Microsoft Visual Studio. Which adjustments do you recommend to others?

Answer 1

Fixedsys Font

Tools > Options

Environment > Fonts and Colors

Font: Fixedsys

Answer 2

Environment->General->Animate environment tools => OFF.

Speeds UI responsiveness by 82%.

Answer 3

Environment => General => Recent files

24 items shown in Window menu

24 items shown in recently used lists

Environment => General

Show status bar ON

Animate environment tools OFF

Answer 4

Line Numbers

• Tools > Options
• Text Editor > All Languages > General
• Display: Line Numbers

Answer 5

I've never found dynamic help to be either dynamic or helpful, and just tends to slow visual studio down, so using regedit:

registry key:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Visual Studio\x.x\Dynamic Help
value:
    Never Show DH on F1 = yes

I'm also keen on setting the following in Options->Projects and Solutions:

• Show Output window when build starts - checked (IMHO easiest way to spot build errors)
• Track Active Item in Solution Explorer - unchecked (stops every project ending up fully expanded in Solution Explorer)

Answer 6

Gotta have the tab indention set up right.

Also, Consolas & Color Themed - white backgrounds hurt my eyes