<p>I'd like to create a script that will configure the Visual Studio IDE the way I like it. Nothing vastly complicated, just a few Tools/Options settings, adding some External Tools, that kind of thing. </p>

<p>I know that this can be done inside VS with Import/Export Settings, but I'd like to be able to automate it from outside of VS. Is this possible, and if so, how?</p>

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<p>Edited to add: doing it from <em>outside</em> of VS is important to me -- I'm hoping to use this as part of a more general "configure this newly-Ghosted PC just the way I like it" script.</p>

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<p>Edited again: the solution seems to be to hack CurrentSettings.vssettings, or use <a href="http://www.autoitscript.com/" rel="noreferrer">AutoIt</a>. Details below.</p>

[{'answer_id': 42733, 'author': 'Mark Cidade', 'author_id': 1659, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1659', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>An easy way is to use the macro recorder to do something simple, then look at the code it produces and edit it as you see fit. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 43492, 'author': 'David Sykes', 'author_id': 259, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/259', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>On my machine Visual Studio stores it's local settings in a file called VCComponents.dat. Its a text file, so perhaps you could find a way of placing your settings directly in there.</p>\n\n<p>The file is stored in my users local AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\VC folder</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 45501, 'author': 'Matt Bishop', 'author_id': 4301, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4301', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>Answering my own question, in two ways:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>In VS2005/8, the things I mentioned (Tools/Options, External Tools) are all stored in the CurrentSettings.vssettings file, in the folder "Visual Studio 200{5|8}\\Settings". This file is just XML, and it can be edited programmatically by anything that knows how to parse XML. You can also just paste a new vssettings file over the top of the default one (at least, this works for me).</p></li>\n<li><p>The larger question of configuring a virgin PC. It turns out that not everything I want to change has an API, so I need some way of pretending to be a user who is actually sitting there clicking on things. The best approach to this seems to be <a href="http://www.autoitscript.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AutoIt</a>, whose scripting language I will now have to learn in my Copious Free Time.</p></li>\n</ol>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/42643', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4301/']