How to control the initial item in VS

[dboggs]

When I open a project in Visual Studio, what controls the "initial item"? I have one project which, most of the time but not always, the working item display tries to open a static library item that is a part of the project (and shows as such in the Solution Explorer window) Of course this item contains only object code, so the working window shows only binary stuff in Hex. This has become quite annoying. If I switch to display a source code item and then close VS, the next time I open the project it will start with that item--as I would expect--but this behavior does not stick.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

I think this is in one of the hidden "user options" files in the solution/project directory. These have file types of .suo and .u2d. You may need to enable viewing of hidden files in Explorer options. Delete those files and then reopen the solution.

[dboggs]

Thanks Steve. Indeed, it looks like this has an effect. I'll be back to report on my testing after a few days more experience.

[dboggs]

I had several .suo and several .u2d files in the project directory. Some of these were as much as a year old, and related to "conflicted copies" due to synchronization failures due to keeping the project in the cloud while working on it with multiple computers. So I deleted all of them.

Now, I find that when I fire up the project in Visual Studio, the item pointer initially points to NOTHING--that is, the working window is blank and even the source file list in the solution explorer is blank. Clicking on it to expand shows all of the source items, and then I am off and running.

So I still don't know what determines the initial item. But this is definitely an improvement: an initial blank screen is much less annoying than an initial screen full of hex code.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Glad to hear it.