Changing the Default "Copy to Output Directory" Setting for Text Files

Question

Does anyone know if there is a way to change a file type's default "Copy to Output Directory" setting in Visual Studio 2008?

I often add text files to my projects. They could be anything from readme files, or some usage information, or test files actually used by the app at runtime.

But I've never ever added a text file where I did not want it copied to the output directory on build.

I always want them copied, but I often forget to change the setting (esp if I am adding a bunch, as in the case of the test files). I'd like to set the default for Visual Studio so that ALL .txt files are ALWAYS copied to the output folder.

Does anyone know if there is a way to permanently change the default setting for .txt files so they are always copied?

Answer 1

I have not actually tested this, but if you use Visual Studio 2010 or newer (i.e. MSBuild 4.0 or newer), you could try to add an ItemDefinitionGroup to the project file like they are used in C++ projects (.vcxproj).

<ItemDefinitionGroup>
  <Content>
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
  </Content>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>

This would copy all files whose Build Action is Content if they don't have CopyToOutputDirectory set explicitly.

I think it doesn't work in Visual Studio 2008 because MSBuild 3.5 doesn't support ItemDefinitionGroup (for C++ it didn't use MSBuild projects yet).