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

Personally i hate that VS defaults to "Tab to Spaces" when you are developing in C#. This is so awkward to work with and unnecessary.

Yes, i know there are issues with Tabs but honestly, did any of you ever encounter them coding in C# on Windows?

Answer 2

Window Layouts

This really isn't a setting but something I always do is back up my settings via Tools > Import and Export Settings.

I make sure to back up my window layouts for both single and multiple monitors. It saves frustration when moving from my multi-monitor setup to a single monitor for a presentation.

Not to mention, it makes it easy to get up and running on a new PC.

Answer 3

In a control's properties, setting GenerateMembers to false for items you don't need (labels, etc). It's not a specifically Visual-Studio thing, more related to the platform, but mixed with the contextual list of objects and functions, it just clears up so much clutter.

Answer 4

Option Strict On

Tools > Options

Projects and Solutions > VB Defaults

Default project settings: Option Strict: On

Answer 5

This applies to winform projects.

Instead of opening the form in design mode by default, you can configure VS to open the code editor instead. This is configured by right-clicking on a form in the solution explorer and choosing the "Open with" option. This gives you a dialog that allows you to specify the default option when double-clicking on a file.

Answer 6

Always show solution

Tools > Options

Projects and Solutions

Always show solution