Let’s say I carry out the following steps immediately after first installing and opening

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Editorial Team

Asked: May 29, 20262026-05-29T17:05:51+00:00 2026-05-29T17:05:51+00:00

Let’s say I carry out the following steps immediately after first installing and opening Microsoft Visual Studio 2010:

File -> New -> Project -> Win32 Console App -> Finish.
Go to the Property Manager pane -> Expand Debug | Win32 -> Right click Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user -> Select Properties.
Wildly change settings in a clueless manner, and generally act like a fool.
Click Apply, save the project, and close Visual Studio.

How do I restore the Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user property sheet to its default, “factory” settings?

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Editorial Team · Answer 1 · 2026-05-29T17:05:52+00:00

I’m not sure if this is the official way, but it does work…

The default property sheets are stored in the following directory:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0

And if you delete them, they will be automatically recreated by Visual Studio using the default settings next time that it is launched.

So you can simply delete Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user.props from that directory and restart VS.

Putting it all together, from the command line, simply issue the following command:

del %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0\Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user.props

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