VS10 beta 1 The registry hives

***Disclaimer: This information applies to Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 only.***

 

The following list describes the registry hives used by VS 2008 and VS10

VS 2008

Main hive

• Root: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0
• User settings: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0

Exp hive

• Root: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0Exp\Configuration
• User settings: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0Exp\UserSettings

 

VS10

Main hive

• Root: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0
• Root cache: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0_Config
• User settings: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0

Exp hive

• Root: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0Exp_Config
• User settings: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0Exp

 

The registry root cache

This is the real hive that is being used by Visual Studio and its being created / updated at Visual Studio startup time.

Creation / Reconstruction

If the hive doesn’t exist it is created using the root (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0) base information. This means that we can safely delete the hive and it will be created again on next Visual Studio launch.

If it exists but it differs from the root (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0) is its reconstructed.

Update

If we recall the No more Devenv /Setup post Visual Studio monitors the following folders:

• %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Extensions
• %VS10_Install_Dir%\Common7\IDE\Extensions
• %VS10_Install_Dir%\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions

During VS startup if any changes are detected in those folders (new / delete / update) the pkgdef are merged again into the hive to reflect the latest definition.

 

Pablo