I'd like to back up these items before reinstalling VS. Where can I find them? I found an answer saying that this data is stored in the registry, but it doesn't seem to be the case for VS17.
3 Answers
VS2017 no longer uses the actual Windows registry, and uses a registry file stored at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_<random-characters>\privateregistry.bin.
You can load it as a hive in the registry editor if you want to look into it to check for the start page contents. Otherwise simply try copying and restoring that file in your new installation.
To complete @ray-koopa's answer:
To change values in the private registry hive by hand, you can use regedit.exe to load a private hive. You need to select the HKEY_USERS node, and click the File > Load Hive… menu. You select the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_<id>\privateregistry.bin file, give a name to the hive (I entered VS2017PrivateRegistry) and now you can see the 15.0_<id>_Config key populated as usual
Note: use File > Unload Hive when done
If you use the key name as VS2017PrivateRegistry the location where recent file list will be:- VS2017PrivateRegistry\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_\ApplicationPrivateSettings_metadata\baselines\CodeContainers\Offline
Related