VC++ Directories in Visual Studio 2010

The default include, lib, etc… directories in Visual Studio 2010 are no longer project dependent.  You can, if you need to, over-ride the settings on a per project basis.  The directory settings are stored in the following location:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0

In this directory you will find the files:  Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user.props, Microsoft.Cpp.x64.user.props, and Microsoft.Itanium.user.props  (the last two only if you have installed the x64 tools).

These files are UTF-8 encoded XML files.  In them you can define your include, lib, executable, reference, and source paths.  You can also define excluded directories.  These settings become the defaults for all C++ projects.  Of course the Win32 file is for 32 bit Windows builds, while the x64 file is for 64 bit AMD64 builds.  I don’t know anyone that has an Itanium computer so I won’t even discuss those.

This is great now that you don’t have to search and replace through every .vcproj file (I know .vcxproj file in 2010) every time you want to change an include path.  Just change the paths in these files and all projects are updated.

Teams:
You can store your Microsoft.Cpp.xxx.user.props files in source control.  Each team member can pull down the required files so that everyone is on the same path (bad pun, couldn’t resist).