Question

Can I set the default-option of “Copy Local” in Visual Studio to False? In most times, when I add a dll as dependency of a project, I want the Copy Local property set to False. Per default, it is True. Is there a way to change the default behaviour of Visual Studio? (2008)

Answer 1

No – Visual Studio uses an internal set of rules to determine what to set Copy Local to.

From MSDN:

1. If the reference is another project, called a project-to-project reference, then the value is true.
2. If the assembly is found in the global assembly cache, the value is false.
3. As a special case, the value for the mscorlib.dll reference is false.
4. If the assembly is found in the Framework SDK folder, then the value is false.
5. Otherwise, the value is true.