Visual Studio open files question

Question

Is it possible to open a project in Visual Studio 2008 without opening all the files that were previously opened last time I had the project open. I have a habit of keeping many files open as I am working on them, so next time I open the project, it (very slowly) loads up a bunch of files into the editor that I may not even need open. I have searched through the settings and cannot find anything to stop this behavior.

Answer 1

I never realized how much that annoyed me as well! I haven't been able to find a setting, but in Options > Environment > Keyboard you can bind a shortcut to Window.CloseAllDocuments. ALT+X was unbound for me so I just used that. I'm interested if there's some hidden setting to automatically do this on solution exit though (or load).

Answer 2

I was hoping for something a little more automatic. VS will create a new .suo file every time the project is saved. So I would have to delete that file every time I open the project. I also don't want to have to remember to close all the files before closing VS.

Other IDEs that I have used have similar functionality, but also make it rather simple to turn on/off.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 3

Simply delete the .suo file. It contains the list of open files.

Answer 4

A bit of research turns up the fact that you can do it with a macro:

• Create a new macro (or use an existing one). You should see a module called EnvironmentEvents in Macro Explorer. (For details, see here.)
• Open the EnvironmentEvents module.

• Put in this code:

  Public Sub CloseDocsOnExit() Handles SolutionEvents.BeforeClosing
      DTE.ExecuteCommand("Window.CloseAllDocuments")
  End Sub
  

• Save and Build the macro.
• Open a whole bunch of documents in your solution, then close Visual Studio.
• Yay! No more open documents!
• (Note: Despite that it says SolutionEvents, it also works if you're working on a project that doesn't have a solution.)

Answer 5

Try the following:

1. Close the program after closing all files.
2. Make a copy of [whatever].suo
3. Open the solution again, open some files, and exit.
4. Copy (don't move) the old .suo file over the one that was just generated.
5. Make the .suo file read only.

If you have a repository you might want to check that file in.

I suggest this because I was having the reverse problem, where it wasn't opening my old files automatically, and the cause was a .suo file that had been checked into the repository and was (for some reason) not being overwritten by Studio. The file wasn't even write protected.

Answer 6

Or you can close all open document from the Window menu before closing VS.