Choose Default Environment Settings Dialog Box

Use this dialog box to specify a predefined Visual Studio Settings collection to apply to the integrated development environment (IDE). If you have side-by-side installations of Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 on the same computer, you also can migrate your existing settings to Visual Studio 2008. 

Note

This dialog box only appears the first time that you start Visual Studio; you cannot access this dialog box again. To change your settings, use the Import and Export Settings wizard, which is available on the Tools menu. For more information, see How to: Reset Your Settings.

  • Choose your default environment settings
    Lists the available developer workstyles. Select the workstyle that most closely matches your primary development activities, or select My Previous Settings to use a settings collection from another Visual Studio edition.

  • Migrate my eligible settings from a previous version and apply them in addition to the default settings selected below.
    When selected, settings contained in currentsettings.vssettings from Visual Studio 2005 are brought forward into Visual Studio 2008. These settings include window layouts, editor defaults, and IntelliSense code snippet locations. 

    The settings from the earlier version of Visual Studio are applied over the settings combination that you select in Choose your default environment settings. In most cases, the settings from the earlier version will overwrite the Visual Studio 2008 settings. 

    Note

    Some settings may not migrate. For example, if you try to migrate settings from a Visual Studio Team System edition to a Visual Studio Professional edition, not all settings would migrate because the Professional edition does not have the same features. Similarly, if a settings category has changed between releases, you may not be able to migrate settings that are related to the changed category. 

  • Start Visual Studio
    Applies the settings associated with the workstyle that you selected and any settings that you migrated, and starts Visual Studio.

  • Exit Visual Studio
    Closes Visual Studio. The next time that you start Visual Studio, this dialog box will be displayed.

See Also

Other Resources

Working with Settings