Disable "Local Help Documentation" option on first run in Visual Studio 2012?

Question

Can the highlighted option be disabled or set to "None" by default via installation parameter or through some settings file modification? We're deploying VS2012 across a network that will be utilized by low privilege users and we would like to avoid confusion that may come up because of the default setting.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi p4ul567,

I am sorry that as far as I know there is no approach to customize the "Choose Default Environment Settings" dialog, nor set the value of the "Local Help Documentation" to be "None" via installation parameter. However, I think you can consider submitting one feedback on the Microsoft Connect site here: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/CreateFeedback.aspx

Thanks.

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Vicky Song [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

In fact, the option CAN be disabled using the following command BEFORE the first run of Visual Studio 2012:

On 64 bit machines:

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\Help /v DisableFirstRunHelpSelection /t reg_dword /d 1

On 32bit machines:

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\Help /v DisableFirstRunHelpSelection /t reg_dword /d 1

All of this is documented here:

Help Manager Overrides

Go visit that page.  It has a few other registry tweaks that might be useful to you! 

The glorious result is here: