.NET Tips and Tricks

Blog archive

Dealing with Read-Only Files

It's easy to miss that you've opened a read-only file in Visual Studio: When you open a file you can't change, a tiny little lock icon appears on the tab of the editor window to the right of the file's name. By default, Visual Studio won't even tell you that you can't change the file until -- after you've made all your changes, of course -- you try to save the file. Only then do you get the bad news with a dialog that gives you three choices:

  • You can create a new file
  • Attempt to overwrite the file (that is, attempt to make the file writeable)
  • Cancel and go back to the file which holds a ton of changes you can't save

Notice the absence of a "Oh , just throw everything away" option.

If you'd prefer to know about this problem before you start making your changes then you just need to set an option in Visual Studio. Go to Tools | Options | Environment | Documents and uncheck the option called "Allow editing of read-only files; warn when attempt to save."

Now, when you start to make changes a read only file you'll get that dialog box asking if you want to create a new file, make the file writeable, or cancel. This time, the cancel option will return you to a file that you haven't invested any time in.

By the way, and for the record, the "make writeable" option never works. It's just there to give you hope ... and then crush it.

Posted by Peter Vogel on 06/20/2018


comments powered by Disqus

Featured

  • VS Code Copilot Previews New GPT-4o AI Code Completion Model

    The 4o upgrade includes additional training on more than 275,000 high-quality public repositories in over 30 popular programming languages, said Microsoft-owned GitHub, which created the original "AI pair programmer" years ago.

  • Microsoft's Rust Embrace Continues with Azure SDK Beta

    "Rust's strong type system and ownership model help prevent common programming errors such as null pointer dereferencing and buffer overflows, leading to more secure and stable code."

  • Xcode IDE from Microsoft Archrival Apple Gets Copilot AI

    Just after expanding the reach of its Copilot AI coding assistant to the open-source Eclipse IDE, Microsoft showcased how it's going even further, providing details about a preview version for the Xcode IDE from archrival Apple.

  • Introduction to .NET Aspire

    Two Microsoft experts will present on the cloud-native application stack designed to simplify the development of distributed systems in .NET at the Visual Studio Live! developer conference coming to Las Vegas next month.

  • Microsoft Previews Copilot AI for Open-Source Eclipse IDE

    Catering to Java jockeys, Microsoft is yet again expanding the sprawling reach of its Copilot-branded AI assistants, previewing a coding tool for the open-source Eclipse IDE.

Subscribe on YouTube

Upcoming Training Events