Synchronized Settings in Visual Studio

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When you use the same user ID to log on to Visual Studio Online on multiple computers, by default your settings are synchronized on all of those computers.

Synchronized settings

By default, the following settings are synchronized.

  • Development settings (You have to select a set of settings the first time you run Visual Studio, but you can change the selection anytime. For more information, see Customizing Development Settings in Visual Studio.)

  • The following options. (To view these, on the menu bar, choose Tools, Options.)

    • Theme settings, on the Environment, General options page

    • All settings on the Environment, Fonts and Colors options page

    • All keyboard shortcuts, on the Environment, Keyboard options page

    • All settings on the Environment, StartUp options page

    • All settings on the Text Editor options pages

  • User-defined command aliases. For more information about how to define command aliases, see Visual Studio Command Aliases.

Specifying which settings get synchronized

On a given computer, in the Options dialog box, on the Environment, Startup options page, you can turn synchronization on or off for different settings categories on that computer. For example, if you decide not to synchronize Text Editor settings on Computer A, its Text Editor settings do not appear on Computer B, and Computer B's Text Editor settings are not applied to Computer A. (The Startup page itself is not synchronized.)

Synchronizing computers that have different Visual Studio editions

Settings can be synchronized on computers that have any Ultimate, Premium, or Professional edition of Visual Studio. You can synchronize settings on computers that all have Express editions, but not on computers that have a mix of Express and non-Express.

Resolving settings conflicts

Settings conflicts are resolved silently whenever possible. If a conflict cannot be resolved, Visual Studio disables synchronization on the computer that has the conflict and notifies you through the Notification Hub. In most cases, there are three ways to resolve the conflict:

  • Upload this computer's incompatible settings to the server.

  • Download the server settings to this computer.

  • Turn synchronization off on this computer to keep it isolated. This does not affect synchronization on the other computers.