Change default location of Visual Studio’s intellisense databases

A small post-it on how to change the default location of intellisense databases for Visual Studio. By default, those huge .sdf files (which get updated again and again) are stored next to your project location.

If you’re working on an SSD, or on a slow USB drive, you might want to avoid storing those databases at their usual location (or just to avoid having huge files around, or whatever other reason)

To do that, just go to Tools > Options then on the Text Editor > C/C++ > Advanced tab, locate the section Fallback Location. Here, Always use Fallback Location will need to be set to true to tell Visual Studio to always use the Fallback Location (which you can then set to any folder you want, or leave empty if you want to use the windows temp folder)

You can now close Visual Studio, remove your sdf files, launch it again. It will prompt you about your fallback location, but you just have to click OK and don’t forget to check the Don’t Prompt Me Again checkbox to avoid this at every launch. Tadaaa, no more sdf files next to your projects !

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