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In Visual Studio 2017, you can select Tools > Options > Environment > Startup > At startup: Show empty environment. This prevents the Start Page from displaying when you launch Visual Studio, and in previous versions it prevented the Start Page from appearing when closing a solution.

In Visual Studio 2017, though, it seems the designers chose to show the Start Page after closing a solution, even if the option was for an empty environment on startup.

Are there any creative ways to get around this until the Visual Studio team decides to provide a reasonable option?

HaveSpacesuit
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    There is a work around detailed on the developer community page Oleg links to in his answer. Work around later added by Praveen. Involves setting up registry entry. Worked for me haven't seen start page since. – Ryan Roos Jun 16 '17 at 16:09
  • That's amazing! Can you put that in an answer? – HaveSpacesuit Jun 16 '17 at 18:24
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    Fixed in Visual Studio 2017 v.15.5, 4 December 2017. The registry workaround and extension are no longer necessary. – StanleyH Dec 28 '17 at 14:56

4 Answers4

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I came across this after running into the same thing. Here is a potential work around from the developer community page from Oleg Savelyev & Bill Menees answers. Work around later added on that page by Praveen Sethuraman.

Here's a workaround you can use to disable the Start Page from reopening after a solution closes.

The steps to follow are:

1.Close all instances of VS & Run Regedit

2.Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

3.File -> Load Hive…

4.Open %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_\privateregistry.bin

5.Enter a name like “MyVSHive”

6.Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\MyVSHive\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_\StartPage

7.Create a new dword with a non-zero value like so:

"DisableOpenOnCloseSolution"=dword:00000001

8.Select “MyVSHive” and then go to File->Unload Hive…

9.Restart VS

Now, on closing a solution, the Start Page will not autopen.

Please note that resetting your settings will cause this setting to be reset and you will have to run through these steps again.

Thanks,

Praveen [MSFT]

Worked for me. Copying over in case it helps someone else.

Ryan Roos
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    I'm using VS2017 15.2 and I see multiple nodes under `Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_{random}` each with their own `StartPage` sub-key. I first added it to the one ending in "{random}_Config" but it didn't work - I needed to add the `DisableOpenOnCloseSolution` value to all the keys for it to work. – Dai Jun 28 '17 at 21:08
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    I found that if you go to %LOCALAPPDATA% and find the "15.0_{random}" folder, then go find that entry in your standard registry, you can create the StartPage folder with the dword specified, it will have the same effect. – Spazmoose Jul 25 '17 at 22:24
  • No longer necessary in Visual Studio 2017 v.15.5 – StanleyH Dec 31 '17 at 10:41
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I disliked this behavior so much that I added an "Auto-close Start Page" option to my free Menees VS Tools 2017 extension for VS 2017. It defaults to false (since I didn't want to change VS's default behavior for everyone using my extension), but I set it to true manually on all my VS installs.

I and others discussed this with Andrew Arnott from Microsoft on the MS Developer Community, but he didn't seem to care much. MS telemetry data says that those of us that don't want to see the Start Page are in the minority, so MS is just going to force it on us now. :-(

Bill Menees
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  • Bill, how does one activate your extension's UI? I can only see Base Converter and Tasks sub-menus under Tools, where is the rest? – ajeh Jul 12 '18 at 14:00
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    The option I mentioned above is under Tools -> Options -> Menees VS Tools -> General. But Microsoft also claims to have fixed the behavior in VS 2017 Update 15.5. If you apply that update (or later) and set VS to startup in an empty environment (Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Startup -> Show empty environment), then you shouldn't see the start page (even without my extension). – Bill Menees Jul 13 '18 at 21:12
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Fixed in Visual Studio 2017 v.15.5, 4 December 2017:

https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/releasenotes/vs2017-relnotes https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/20817/disabled-startpage-is-opened-when-project-is-close.html

Thank you for your feedback! We have fixed this issue and it's available in Visual Studio 15.5.

It's great that Microsoft listened to the request in developercommunity, but I think the requesters missed the main point:

The problem is not the 4 seconds that it takes to close an extra window, it's the break in the programmer's concentration while looking at and resisting unnecessary link-bait.

StanleyH
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Seems that this behavior is by design https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/20817/disabled-startpage-is-opened-when-project-is-close.html

One approach is to create own extension. See more https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/4f59de7c-715e-4f42-93d4-5e13efd626e3/visual-studio-2017-disable-start-page?forum=visualstudiogeneral

Oleg Savelyev
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