Republished With Permission - Original Article
One of the new features in VS 2005 is the support for "profiles"
in the IDE. Profiles provide the ability to define pre-set defaults for
options, menus, key-bindings, and command-bars across the tool-set. VS 2005
ships with several built-in profiles out of the box including: VB, C#, C++,
Web, Test, and a General Development Settings similar to 2003. When VS
launches the very first time it prompts a user to pick which of these profiles
to use by default (note that you can build all app types and even use all
languages regardless of which profile you pick).
If you ever want to change or reset your profile, you can
select the Tools->Import and Export Settings menu option. It will then
walk-you through a wizard where you can export or import settings to/from
others (these are saved as XML files that you can ship around to work
colleagues or friends). If you select the "reset all settings" radio
button in this dialog, it will let you nuke and re-pick your default profile
from scratch (for example: to re-pick the C#, VB or Web one by default).
There is bound to be lots of debate as to which profile is
best, and why different options are set differently in whichever profile. The
good news is that once you pick a profile, you can tweak it however you want to
make it "perfect" (where perfect = what you personally think is
right).
I’ve seen a few common questions on forums about profile
tweaks (how do I make it do xyz) that I thought I’d call out in case you were
interested:
