Visual Studio Permanently Disable Overwrite

Question

I have a minor annoyance with Visual Studio. In the bottom right hand corner of Visual Studio, there is a INS/OVR button to toggle Insert/Overwrite. I always have this button set to INS, and I always want it to be set to INS.

However, sometimes when I build the solution, Visual Studio changes this back to OVR. I have to click on the button to change it back to INS, which is slightly inconvenient.

I do not know why this setting sometimes changes. Is there anyway I can permanently disable the overwrite mode in Visual Studio or prevent solution builds from changing this setting?

Yablon

Answer 1

I don't think you can permanently turn insert/overwrite off. Are you accidentally pressing insert on your keyboard? You can press the insert key on your keyboard or Shift+0 on the numpad to toggle it back again.

Knighterrant

It appears that I was just accidentally pressing the Insert key on the keyboard when trying to backspace. – Yablon

make sure your numlock is on :) – Beall

@elaine-lin I don't think you are, at least not always—it happens to me too from time to time, and I have the insert key disabled in my Logitech preferences. And it's annoying as hell to switch off overwrite this way because I always have to go into the Logitech preferences and switch the insert key on just to disable it. Ugh. I did now set a special, complicated (not easy to accidentally press) shortcut as per Chase Florell's answer below to disable it, but this has to be a bug in VS, it happens nowhere else. – Clairvoyant

Shift+0 (zero) worked for me; I'm using a Mac keyboard and double-clicking "OVR" did nothing. See Chase Florell's answer below to remove the shortcut bindings that allow you to accidentally turn on overwrite mode. – Gabbi

Answer 2

Visual Studio, Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard, remove the shortcut binding for Edit.OvertypeMode

Fronde

The answer to the question and highly recommended ! – Eurydice

This should be marked as the correct answer – Beltane

Works when keyboards do not have in INS key (e.g. apple keyboards) Works in latest VS2019 layout which does not have a INS/ORV button. Allows for a permanent Fix. – Copaiba

Thanks. But VS UI in Chinese doesn't allow search in English names. I'm still struggling to find its UI name in Chinese. OK got - it's "编辑.改写模式" – Karlotte

Answer 3

Sometimes visual studio wont disable overtype even if you hit insert with numlock on, If this happens just close script and open it again and it will work. This is a bug in visual studio.

Darkle

Answer 4

search keyboard shortcuts in VS code then look for ** workbench.action.quickOpenWithModes ** set Insert key for this as earlier it was set to Numpad0 key

I hope this will resolve your issue

or you can also search what functionality is going with any particular key and you can also edit your shortcut keys as per your need

Naumachia

Answer 5

Go to Visual Studio Code's settings and type "overtype" in the search bar, and set it to 'never'.

Hope this helped! :)

Included

Its not visual studio code, its visual studio – Darkle

This answer is not correct for current builds of Visual Studio Code. Works for Visual Studio Community Edition. Please clarify. – Bamford