Installing Visual Studio Project Templates without deleting the ProjectTemplatesCache

Question

I'm working on an installer that needs to add several files to AVR Studio 5, an IDE developed by Atmel that is based on the Visual Studio Isolated Shell. These files include project templates for the "New Project" dialog.

By experimenting, I found that I can successfully add the project templates and get them to show up in the dialog if I simply copy them into C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\AVR Studio 5.0\ProjectTemplates\ and then delete or rename C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\AVR Studio 5.0\ProjectTemplateCache\cache.bin. I have not been able to find any good documentation on how the Visual Studio ProjectTemplateCache folder works. It seems to contain the same files as the ProjectTemplates folder, plus the cache.bin file, so I'm not sure why it would be useful. After I rename cache.bin, Visual Studio does not regenerate it, which makes me worried that renaming it might have some permanent consequences. Is renaming cache.bin a bad idea? What problems can it cause?

Is there another, easy way to install new project templates? Ideally I would like something that is easier than creating a Visual Studio Extension (.vsix) file, as recommended in this previous StackOverflow question: Installing a custom project template with Visual Studio Installer project

The installer I am working on uses NSIS, if that matters.

Answer 1

For my isolated shell I copy my template .zip files to 'Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates' and '\ItemTemplates'. I then run my isolated shell with the command line '/installvstemplates'. This rebuilds the caches and when you next run the isolated shell, they show up properly.

I also had to target the isolated shell in my extension manifest files.

Have you tried any of these?

Answer 2

If per user project templates are fine, you can drop them in <My Documents>\AVRStudio\Templates\ProjectTemplates.