vim overrides default settings when adding new .vimrc file

Question

I have recently tried to aid in automating my workflow in vim. Since there wasn't a .vimrc file in my home folder by default, I've made a new one and put my code in. After starting up vim again I was surprised to see my C code unhighlighted. After removing .vimrc file, everything was back to normal. Knowing this, I would assume vim falls back to some internally defined .vimrc file when there isn't one in the user folder. Is there a way to load a user-made .vimrc file without overriding system default settings? If not, is there a list of commands that I can put into my .vimrc file to restore those settings?

Answer 1

If not, is there a list of commands that I can put into my .vimrc file to restore those settings?

Yes, simply add the line runtime defaults.vim on top of your vimrc.