title: "Add existing item" in Visual Studio: is it possible to make "Add as link" default?
body: <p>As pointed out in <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/1212082/650012">this</a> SO answer, the <em>Add > Existing item</em> dialog in Visual Studio by default displays the <em>Add</em> button (meaning that the selected items will be physically copied to the new location), whereas the desirable action is often (always?) to <em>Add as Link</em>.</p>
  
  <p>Is it possible to configure Visual Studio so that <em>Add as link</em> is selected by default when opening the <em>Add > Existing item</em> dialog? </p>
  
  <p>I have thoroughly searched the <em>Options</em> dialog in Visual Studio and examined the <em>MSDN documentation</em> for an answer to this, but so far to no avail. </p>
  
  <p><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921108.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Project Linker</a> would be a good option for automated linking when two <strong>new</strong> projects are to share the same code base. However, when linking a large number of files from an existing to a new project, one seems to be confined to the <em>Add > Existing item</em> approach, and this work could be much more convenient and less prone to error if <em>Add as link</em> would be the default action.</p>