VS 2017 Settings

Was hunting around to figure out how to do a few things in 2017 that were fairly simple in previous versions. Turns out that the registry settings are handled differently now. Whilst searching for some insight on Google, I came across this very useful posting:

https://blog.agchapman.com/updating-registry-settings-for-visual-studio-2017/

All credit to A. G. Chapman - the above link and excellent post taken from Chapman's blog.

Here is the meat and 2 veg:

Here is how to update registry keys for Visual Studio 2017:

1. Open regedit (for example, from Run...)
2. Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE from the left bar
3. Select File > Load Hive...
4. Load the privateregistry.bin file from %localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_[instanceid]{RootSuffix}\privateregistry.bin. The RootSuffix for a normal VS installation will be blank. This is mostly used for the experimental instance
5. Name the key whatever you want (e.g. "VS") when prompted
6. From there, you should be able to view the entries just like any normal registry.
7. Once you're finished, you need to make sure that you "Unload" the private registry, by selecting the "root" key ("VS" in this example) and selecting File > Unload Hive . If you don't do this, VS won't be able to read the privateregistry.bin file when it runs, causing major problems.