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Customize startup

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

You can customize the startup experience for Visual Studio in several different ways, such as opening your most recent solution or just an empty development environment.

You can also show a custom start page, which is a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) XAML page that runs in a tool window and can run commands that are internal to Visual Studio.

To change the startup item

  1. On the menu bar, choose Tools > Options.

  2. Expand Environment, and then choose Startup.

  1. In the At startup list, choose the item to be displayed after Visual Studio launches.

To show a custom start page

You can create your own custom start page using the Visual Studio SDK, or use one that somebody else has already created. For example, you can find custom start pages at the Visual Studio Marketplace.

To install a custom start page, open the .vsix file, or copy and paste the start page files into the %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\StartPages folder on your computer.

To select which custom start page to display

  1. On the menu bar, choose Tools > Options.

  2. Expand Environment, and then choose Startup.

  3. In the Customize Start Page list, choose the page that you want.

Tip

If an error in a custom start page causes Visual Studio to crash, you can open Visual Studio in safe mode and then set it to use the default start page. See /SafeMode (devenv.exe).

See also