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VS Recent Project List Cleaner

Laudeci Oliveira

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4.10/5 (10 votes)

21 Jan 2004

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How to clear Visual Studio .NET Recent Project List.

Introduction

This application was created to give me a way to easily clear some VS project items on VS Start Up page. This application simply explores the registry location where VS.NET stores Projects Lists. Also, the application will check if a project is still existing and mark it as [Broken Link] if it doesn't exist anymore showing that you can remove that project from the recent list.

Background

This application was built using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, maybe it doesn't list and clear projects list from previous versions of VS.NET. But you can easy update the code to handle another VS.NET registry location.

Using the code

The code also shows how to access the Windows registry and retrieve/delete/update values from/to it. The Registry.cs file is not mine, it can be in other author submissions here.

C#

//This is the registry location for the VS.Net 2003 Recent list
public string RegistryValueKey = 
  @"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\ProjectMRUList";

Points of Interest

Some parts of this code were easy to migrate from my VB6 version utility.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

Written By

Laudeci Oliveira

Web Developer

Brazil

This member has not yet provided a Biography. Assume it's interesting and varied, and probably something to do with programming.

Comments and Discussions

Harm_Salomons3-Jan-07 20:25

3-Jan-07 20:25

With some small changes this program can also clean the recent list of VS2005:

public string RegistryValueKey2003 =@"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\ProjectMRUList";
public string RegistryValueKey2005 =@"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\ProjectMRUList";

then you build your list with one of those values.

depending on the version of Visual Studio you will have to read two or three lines from
the solution to get to the project name:

for 2003:
System.IO.StreamReader PFile = new System.IO.StreamReader(sName);
sProjectName = PFile.ReadLine();
sProjectName = PFile.ReadLine();
iStart = sProjectName.IndexOf("=")+ 3;
iEnd = sProjectName.IndexOf("\"",iStart);
sProjectName= sProjectName.Substring(iStart,iEnd - iStart);
PFile.Close();

for 2005:
System.IO.StreamReader PFile = new System.IO.StreamReader(sName);
sProjectName = PFile.ReadLine();
sProjectName = PFile.ReadLine();
sProjectName = PFile.ReadLine();
iStart = sProjectName.IndexOf("=")+ 3;
iEnd = sProjectName.IndexOf("\"",iStart);
sProjectName= sProjectName.Substring(iStart,iEnd - iStart);
PFile.Close();

H.Salomons

peterchen20-Jun-07 21:32

20-Jun-07 21:32

(I think)[^] Cool | :cool:

Cool | :cool:

We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist

Re: supports all

Harm Salomons22-Jun-07 5:25

22-Jun-07 5:25

It should have been part of VS else it did not come back so often...

(every programmer thinks his wheel is rounder)

Harm

Re: supports all

peterchen22-Jun-07 12:33

22-Jun-07 12:33

The diifference is, mine is Wink | ;)

Wink | ;)

We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist

notjustmani7-Feb-06 7:13

7-Feb-06 7:13

Cool | :cool:

I had been struggling with my long project list to search for my current project. It gets worst if we create multiple projects with the same name. Your cool tool did the job to clean up my list, and freed me! Thanks.

Mani

Studio 7.0 support

mbln14-Jun-04 0:38

14-Jun-04 0:38

Hi,

I was looking for this for 7.O so here are required patches to have support for Studio 7.0 also:

Registry.cs:OpenKey

<br />
  // Modification: when not finding a key also return error<br />
  // Author: Maurice Beelen<br />
  if (null == currentKey)<br />
  {   <br />
    bError = true;<br />
    strError.Append( "Unable to open the key " + registryKey + " " + key );<br />
  }<br />
  return bError == true? false: true;<br />
}<br />

Form1.cs

<br />
  // Modification: Allow search for 7.0 and 7.1<br />
  // Author: Maurice Beelen<br />
  private string RegistryValueKey71 =@"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\ProjectMRUList";<br />
  private string RegistryValueKey70 =@"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\ProjectMRUList";<br />
  private string RegistryValueKeyUsed = "";<br />
<br />
  --->% part cut %<---- goto: ShowRegistryEntries<br />
    // Modification: when 7.1 not found, look for 7.0<br />
    // Author: Maurice Beelen<br />
    if (mReg.OpenKey("HKEY_CURRENT_USER",RegistryValueKey71,false))<br />
    {<br />
      RegistryValueKeyUsed = RegistryValueKey71;<br />
    }<br />
    else if (mReg.OpenKey("HKEY_CURRENT_USER",RegistryValueKey70,false))<br />
    {<br />
      RegistryValueKeyUsed = RegistryValueKey70;<br />
    }<br />
<br />
  --->>% part cut %<<---- goto: DeleteRegistryEntry  private  void DeleteRegistryEntry(string EntryName){<br />
		<br />
    // Modification: use previously found key<br />
    // Author: Maurice Beelen<br />
    mReg.OpenKey("HKEY_CURRENT_USER",RegistryValueKeyUsed,true);<br />
    if (!mReg.DeleteKeyValue(EntryName)) {<br />
	MessageBox.Show (mReg.ErrorMessage);<br />
    }<br />
    mReg.Close(false);<br />
  }<br />
<br />
  private void UpdateRegistryEntry(string EntryName, string ValueName){<br />
    // Modification: use previously found key<br />
    // Author: Maurice Beelen<br />
    mReg.OpenKey("HKEY_CURRENT_USER",RegistryValueKeyUsed,true);<br />
    if (!mReg.SetValue( EntryName,ValueName)) {<br />
        MessageBox.Show (mReg.ErrorMessage);<br />
    }<br />
    mReg.Close(false);<br />
  }<br />

Re: Studio 7.0 support

Laudeci Oliveira14-Jun-04 2:07

Laudeci Oliveira

14-Jun-04 2:07

Thank you for your comments... .the code is implemented the way you did here...
But let me ask you a question, how can i update this page? Confused | :confused:

Confused | :confused:

Laudeci Oliveira
Microsoft Certified Professional

Exactly what I was looking for...

brucetp31-Mar-04 2:18

31-Mar-04 2:18

This little util did the job perfectly. It's great being free of all the useless links in my [not so recent] projects. Thanks for sharing!

Bruce

A small enhancement

dgroves30-Jan-04 6:27

30-Jan-04 6:27

Great little project! I always try to tailor projects like this to suit my strange view of the world, and I added the following code to the ShowRegistryEntries() procedure, right before the line mReg.Close(false):

int numChecked = this.listView1.CheckedItems.Count;<br />
CmdApplyChanges.Text = "Remove " + numChecked.ToString() + <br />
     " checked item" + (numChecked > 1 ? "s" : "");<br />
CmdApplyChanges.Visible = (numChecked > 0 ? true : false); //no button if none checked

This way the user knows how many actual broken links are in the list. I lost count while scrolling my list up and down, so this seemed a reasonable solution.

Thanks again for a very useful posting.

Re: A small enhancement

Laudeci Oliveira31-Jan-04 2:11

Laudeci Oliveira

31-Jan-04 2:11

Thank you for your comment...

I have changed the source to include a procedure called CountCheckedItems using your code to update the button text when the user checks others items in the listview.

private void CountCheckedItems(int Option){<br />
			<br />
			<br />
			int numChecked =0;<br />
<br />
			foreach(ListViewItem lvw in this.listView1.Items )<br />
			{<br />
				if (lvw.Checked)numChecked++ ;<br />
			<br />
			}<br />
			if (Option == 0)<br />
				numChecked++;<br />
			else <br />
				numChecked--;<br />
<br />
			CmdApplyChanges.Text = "Remove " + numChecked.ToString() + <br />
				" checked item" + (numChecked > 1 ? "s" : "");<br />
			CmdApplyChanges.Visible = (numChecked > 0 ? true : false); <br />
		<br />
		}<br />
		<br />
		}<br />
<br />
private void listView1_ItemCheck(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.ItemCheckEventArgs e)<br />
		{<br />
			if (e.NewValue ==CheckState.Checked  )<br />
				CountCheckedItems(0);<br />
			else<br />
				CountCheckedItems(1);<br />
		} <br />
<br />

Thank you again for your comment

Laudeci Oliveira
Microsoft Certified Professional

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