How to: Add Templates to the New Project Dialog Box

A number of predefined project templates are installed during Visual Studio installation. For a complete list of predefined project templates, see Default Project Templates in Visual Studio. In addition to default project templates you can create custom or subtype-specific project templates. For example, the Smart Device subtype provides its own templates for Visual C# and Visual Basic projects. For instructions on how to create a custom template, see How to: Create Project Templates.

Adding a Template to the New Project Dialog Box

To add a template to the New Project dialog box

  1. Create a template, including the MyTemplate.vstemplate file.

  2. Select the files in your template (including the .vstemplate file), right-click them, click Send To, and then click Compressed (zipped) Folder. The files that you previously extracted are compressed into a .zip file.

Put the .zip template file in the Visual Studio project template directory. This directory is under the Visual Studio installation directory and is called, Templates\ProjectTemplates\.

See Also

Concepts

Contributing to the Add New Item Dialog Box

Other Resources

Project Subtypes

Visual Studio Templates