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What's the best default location for projects in Visual Studio?

Over the years I have hesitated between having my project / source folders in the same level directory removed from the root (e.g. D: \ Projects) and saving them in the default Visual Studio location.

In the past I have resisted storing everything in different My Documents folders installed by Win 95, Win 98 and XP. I finally switched to storing them in the Documents folder as Vista shortened the path and I got tired of changing the default directories for my dev tools. However, I am now leaning again towards creating a root folder as I am setting up a new machine.

I'm tired of the long paths you have to go to when things are stored in document folders. Also, I do not archive the source code and database files as I do with my other documents, since I am using VCS for the source code. However, it seems like you are always struggling to keep the "non-standard" source, as every Dev tool usually wants to store stuff in a subfolder of documents.

I would like to hear other opinions on this issue.

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I think it depends on your use ... I prefer to keep my development projects on a separate disk / partition, so the following convention is usually used D:\projects\{company-name}\({client-name}|internal)\{project-name}

In cases where the client name comes into play, by this company, and for another. I keep my projects under D:\projects\personal\...

This allows for better structure.



As far as backup strategies go, imho is what source control is for. I prefer subversion and have a backup strategy for svn server. Although I didn't really care about ankh 1.x, version 2.x along with TortoiseSVN worked great for me. As a rule of thumb, I check often and only try to check the code in a healthy state (although new features / code may not work).

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In clear violation of my Unix past, I use c: \ dev (for development) or whatever drive I use for development. Note. It is recommended that you use the system partition for development, as software development does fragment the disk.

I've never had a reason to use another directory - except in some projects where "company standards" forced everyone to have a development directory at the root of the C: drive. (indeed they had hardcoded paths to c: \ whatever)



During development, I sometimes check multiple versions of a source for different versions - unless I find out that the version checked into version control of the day actually contains each file. (I sometimes add the file to the development directory, but forget to check it out.)

So I believe it has nothing to do with your development directory if the path is typical for you (I prefer short paths) and does not contain spaces for the usual reasons in windows (if you want to do some scripting).

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I preferred the location in a different section. Because projects have many, many small files, and if you are using SVN or some other version control system, these files have a very high fragmentation and slowdown system if stored on an OS partition.

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I haven't tried this myself, but I think you can put your projects in My Documents and use a symbolic link to the directory in the root folder. By doing this, you can access your files both ways and solve problems like changing directory for tools. Information about symbolic links in Vista

If you're only using one computer, I really don't understand why you should put your code in the profile directory, so the backup should be done using source control.

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I store "active" projects on a secondary drive, one level from the root. It's much easier to get to this folder quickly (even if VS2008 has this nice "Open folder in Windows Explorer"). It's also handy for backups, formatting / reinstalling, etc. "Less active" projects are stored on the NAS for quick reference. They are all also stored on the remote SVN server, which is under backup. (I would also recommend not using # in the folder for the web app as it (sometimes) generates strange errors from the development web server)

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I am using SUBST (starts at startup) to map some random folder to a high letter drive. Then I can put my things anywhere and move them, but still I always refer to it through Y:

or Q:

or whatever.

This is one of those additional levels of indirection that is said to solve every problem.

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For personal projects, I just put them on the desktop (although I move the desktop to D: \ Desktop). They are archived to my documents when they become inactive.

To work, I have all projects in the C: \ Sourcecode folder inside a dedicated development VM.

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Just one question: are you developing desktop apps or web apps first?

If you write web applications all the time, here's what works for me:

  • Create a folder: c: \ dev or c: \ sites (keep it simple)
  • Register the folder as a virtual directory in IIS
  • Create a different folder for each of your projects and create a web application in IIS for each one.

One of the benefits this setup can have is that it makes it easier for you to navigate the site in a browser, i.e. typing, easier to memorize, standardize for all your other applications.

my 2 cents.

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it's better to save your project in a different section besides the window and I think the way I do it d: \ projects \ "some project grouping has its own selection" \ projectname

eg. d: \ projects \ UNIversty \ admission d: \ Projects \ universry \ expertise d: \ projects \ planners \ ipp

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