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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-19T01:38:30+00:00

I often build and modify databases from within Visual Studio 2010 Pro. I have

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I often build and modify databases from within Visual Studio 2010 Pro. I have VS set to prompt me after every change to save a change script, so that I have the scripting necessary to update the production DB when the time comes.

My issue with this is that the default directory for saving these files is always the ‘current directory’ when Visual Studio was started. That means it was originally the VS install directory, until I changed my shortcut to VS to at least pass my Visual Studio projects root directory.

But as a freelance developer working on various projects for various clients, my folder structure from there is still somewhat significant, so it’s usually more than just a single folder down from there I need to go.

One solution can be to open Solutions from their Solution files directly, since that passes the solution directory as current. However, I never do this; I start VS directly and typically load recent projects from the start page.

So, does anyone know a way to change the default location that VS will offer to save database change scripts? It’s not in the standard settings of VS; I imagine an add-in/extension could do something there, but I’m not aware of any which do, and I’ve not had enough experience working on extensions to have an idea how to do one myself.

Any help finding/creating an appropriate extension, or other hack, will be appreciated!

p.s. I really don’t want to earn a Tumbleweed badge off this question! heh

EDIT: I wonder; perhaps the angle to look toward is changing the ‘current directory’ based on the solution loaded?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    One point to note is you can use solution explorer and save database scripts without having a project loaded – which kind of suggests the path isn’t project related, but fixed to devenv itself and devenv will have to be reloaded to change the path. So as you suggested, you need to open the solution file directly – but for me, that still didn’t work, so I did a bit of batch scripting to make it work.
    This is my solution – I’ve tested it and it works

    Create a batch file – This is my version: Theres a lot of stuff that can be removed, but I’m sure you can tidy it up.

    @ECHO OFF

REM this bit gets the directory from a parameter passed in as %1 - assuming %1 is a filename
SET PT=%~p1

ECHO %PT%

SET PRJ=%1

ECHO Project File:  %PRJ%

SET HERE=%PT%

REM GO to visual studio command prompt, right-clic get properties and path of vcvarsall.bat

CALL "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86

REM %comspec% /k ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86


CD %HERE%
ECHO %HERE%

START devenv.exe %PRJ%

    Save the batch file.

    Go to your visual Studio Solution file that you want to open – right-click the .sln and select “open with …” navigate to the batch file – and open with that.

    It does mean you have to open your projects by right-clicking on the solution file, and not by using the in-built recent-projects list.

    Another possibility is to set an environment variable under windows for your project directory, (e.g. PRJ = C:\Documents and Settings\My User\My Documents\VS Projects) Then in the Save script dialog box, you can type %PRJ% to shortcut getting to your project folder.

    Not exactly what you wanted – but workable.

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