General, Environment, Options Dialog Box
Use this page of the Options dialog box to change default settings for the integrated development environment (IDE). You can access the Options dialog box by clicking Options on the Tools menu and then selecting the General page in the Environment folder. If this page does not appear in the list, select Show all settings in the Options dialog box.
Note
The dialog boxes and menu commands you see might differ from those described in Help depending on your active settings or edition. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Visual Studio Settings.
Window layout
Tabbed documents
Select this option to display document windows that are tabbed together within editors. Tabbed document windows are useful for organizing and switching between multiple open documents. You must restart the IDE for changes to take effect.Multiple documents
Choose this option to open documents in a multiple document interface (MDI) environment. MDI document windows are useful for gaining the screen space that is otherwise taken up by the tabs in the tabbed documents environment. When working in MDI mode, you can switch between documents by pressing CTRL+TAB or you can use the tile options located on the Window menu. You must restart the IDE for changes to take effect.
Recent files
<n> items shown in Window menu
Customizes the number of windows that appear in the Windows list of the Window menu. Type a number between 1 and 24. The default is 10.<n> items shown in recently used lists
Customizes the number of most recently used projects and files that appear on the File menu. Type a number between 1 and 24. The default is 6. This is an easy way to retrieve recently used projects and files.
Show status bar
Displays the status bar. The status bar is located at the bottom of the IDE and displays information about the progress of ongoing operations.Close button affects active tool window only
Specifies that when the Close button is clicked, only the tool window that has focus currently is closed and not all of the tool windows in the docked set. By default, this option is selected.Auto Hide button affects active tool window only
Specifies that when the Auto Hide button is clicked, only the tool window that has focus currently is hidden automatically and not all of the tool windows in the docked set. By default, this option is not selected.Animate environment tools
Controls transition effects. Clearing this option causes auto-hidden windows to appear instantly when requested rather than slowly transitioning onto the screen.Speed
Controls the speed at which animation effects such as Auto Hide are executed. Experiment with animation speeds to find the setting that best suits you. This option is available only when you select the Animate environment tools option.Restore File Associations
Registers file types that are normally associated with Visual Studio. Registration causes Windows to display the correct icons in Windows Explorer, and to recognize Visual Studio as the correct application for opening these file types.This option can be useful if you have two different versions of Visual Studio installed on the same computer, and you later uninstall one of the versions. After uninstalling, the icons for Visual Studio files no longer appear in Windows Explorer. In addition, Windows no longer recognizes Visual Studio as the default application for editing these files. This option restores those associations.