How do I truly reset every setting in Visual Studio 2012?

Question

I am trying to reset every single setting inside Visual Studio as I have completely lost all IntelliSense. I tried the Tools -> Import/Export settings -> Reset, but that is not clearing all the settings. I know it is not since the color theme was not reset, and I still do not have IntelliSense. Short of uninstalling and deleting every trace of the program including the registry, is there another way to reset every single setting to the factory default?

Tamas

I would try and do a repair in Add/Remove programs and then reapply the latest cumulative update. – Cobnut

@Art that did nothing to reset the settings. – Tamas

You can also try to open up a Visual Studio Command prompt and try the following command: devenv /ResetSettings and devenv /ResetSkipPkgs. Finally, you can try starting Visual Studio in safe mode and see if you get your intellisense back by doing: devenv /SafeMode from the command prompt. My guess is that if you still do not have intellisense in SafeMode, something is really screwed up and you will have to re-install – Cobnut

@Art While that did give me intillisense back it did not fully reset all the VS settings. – Tamas

delete settings from visual studio 2012/settings folder in documents, at next launch it will build default for that particular user, would that be enough? – Hagai

Answer 1

Visual Studio has multiple flags to reset various settings:

• /ResetUserData - (AFAICT) Removes all user settings and makes you set them again. This will get you the initial prompt for settings again, clear your recent project history, etc.
• /ResetSettings - Restores the IDE's default settings, optionally resets to the specified VSSettings file.
• /ResetSkipPkgs - Clears all SkipLoading tags added to VSPackages.
• /ResetAddin - Removes commands and command UI associated with the specified Add-in.

The last three show up when running devenv.exe /?. The first one seems to be undocumented/unsupported/the big hammer. From here:

Disclaimer: you will lose all your environment settings and customizations if you use this switch. It is for this reason that this switch is not officially supported and Microsoft does not advertise this switch to the public (you won't see this switch if you type devenv.exe /? in the command prompt). You should only use this switch as the last resort if you are experiencing an environment problem, and make sure you back up your environment settings by exporting them before using this switch.

Homely

I was having issues during debugging where all open documents would close and couldn't be reopened. Found a solution #28976081 and linked this post to help out the cause. – Mackenziemackerel

ResetUserData Works with VS2015 too (after it lost integration with git and then started displaying "no such interface supported" on startup). – Degeneration

"make sure you back up your environment settings by exporting them." How? – Tanah

@ColonelPanic In Visual Studio, "Tools" menu, "Import and Export Settings Wizard" – Pupillary

/ResetUserData also worked for me. VS2015 Professional Edition – Disk

Answer 2

How to hard reset Visual Studio instance

When developing extensions sometimes you just mess up, others someone else does. If you start getting errors loading even the most mundane extensions, these are the instructions to hard reset your instance.

Close Visual Studio (if you haven’t already).
Open the registry editor (regedit.exe)
Delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\{version}
Delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\{version}_Config
Delete the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\{version} directory.

Enjoy your brand new Visual Studio instance.

• Use {version}=10.0 for Visual Studio 2010
• Use {version}=11.0 for Visual Studio 2012
• Use {version}=12.0 for Visual Studio 2013

If on the other side you want to reset the experimental hive you can do the same to with the ‘{version}Exp’ ones.

Happy coding!

Source: http://www.corvalius.com/site/hacks/how-to-hard-reset-visual-studio-instance/

Rugose

For problems with Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server also the TFS cache directory under "%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\5.0\Cache" should be deleted. – Rapprochement

If @wewa's path doesn't work, this worked for me: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Team Foundation\5.0\Cache – Serg

Answer 3

Click on Tools menu > Import and Export Settings > Reset all settings > Next > "No, just reset settings, overwriting all current settings" > Next > Finish.

Skater

Answer 4

To reset your settings

• On the Tools menu, click Import and Export Settings.
• On the Welcome to the Import and Export Settings Wizard page, click Reset all settings and then click Next.
• If you want to delete your current settings combination, choose No, just reset settings, overwriting all current settings, and then click Next. Select the programming language(s) you want to reset the setting for.

Click Finish.

The Reset Complete page alerts you to any problems encountered during the reset.

Andras

-1 This does not describe the entire process, there is one extra screen not addressed in this reply - "Collection of settings". – Cyrillic

Answer 5

Executing the command: Devenv.exe /ResetSettings like :

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE>devenv.exe /ResetSettings , resolved my issue :D

For more: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms241273.aspx

Partook

Answer 6

Just repair Visual Studio itself from the control panel and that should do the trick!

Skerl

Answer 7

1) Run Visual Studio Installer

2) Click More on your Installed version and select Repair

3) Restart

Worked on Visual Studio 2017 Community

Ferment

That, at least in my case, meant a reinstallation (and even if you happen to have installation files cached it's not a quick process), so beware. – Decigram