How many places are project templates stored?

Question

I updated a template file today and I see the old one remains.

I referred to the article at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/how-to-locate-and-organize-project-and-item-templates?view=vs-2022

I found one in C:\Users[USER_NAME]\Documents\Visual Studio 2022\My Exported Templates and moved the file out of there to my desktop.

I found another one in C:\Users[USER_NAME]\Documents\Visual Studio 2022\Templates\ProjectTemplates and moved that one out as well.

Both of these files are dated today. I don't see a "Visual C#" file in either of these locations. I see a C# folder, but it's empty. I tried searching in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Professional\Common7. Not there.

Is there a way I can get VS to tell me where that template is?

Answer 1

VS2022 caches a user's custom templates. Refer to the comments made to the answer posted by @Karen Payne MVP in this post -- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/714454/location-of-visual-studio-2022-project-template-ca

Answer 2

I found the ones that were sticking in the list. They were installed using VSIX that I had created for the rest of the team. They're in %AppLocalData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\VERSION\Extensions\AUTHOR where VERSION could be 17.0_ followed by a hexidecimal folder name, and AUTHOR could be something easy like the name of the author or something cryptic like 12cyuzu4.zxr.

It's best to remove those using the UI. Use the menu "Extensions / Manage Extensions". Find the items in the list and 'uninstall'. The VSIX installer will launch and remove them when you close all the VS windows.

Mike