When you click Open Project in Visual Studio 2005, you're presented with 3 basic folders to traverse:
Desktop
My Projects
My Computer
It always bugged me that My Documents was not displayed, nor was it easy to get a new custom folder onto the shortcut bar. In Microsoft Office land, you can add to the My Places bar fairly simply. Click Open document, browse to the folder and right click on the My Places bar to add the short-cut. Not so simple in Visual Studio.
The hack to get My Documents (or any custom folder) on the My Places bar:
- Open Registry Editor (regedit)
- Browse to :
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Open Find\Places\UserDefinedPlaces - Add a New Key and name it Place0
- Within this key add 2 String Values and name them:
Name
Path - In the Name string value, provide a short description (example: Client Projects)
- In the Path string value, provide the full path to your custom folder (example: c:\Dev\Clients)
- Close the registry and reopen Visual Studio
Note that if you pass an invalid folder (like simply entering "My Documents" instead of the fully qualifed path) in the registry, the entire key will be deleted by Visual Studio when you open the application
