How do I manage many configurations in Visual Studio?

Question

Well, I want to manage x86 and x64 platforms, and many different configurations like "Debug CPU UMFPACK", "Release CUDA CNC", etc. When making changes in project properties, how do I apply them to multiple configurations/platforms at once? Have I missed something in Visual Studio?

Answer 1

In the project properties dialog, select "All Configuations" or "Multiple Configurations" from the configuration dropdown box.

Caution: The dialog will then only show empty property values for those which differ in the selected configurations. You might overwrite something there accidentally.

Answer 2

Yes you have.
You can create a single set of project properties ("vsprops") and have multiple configurations inherit from that single set.
When you want to change something for in all of them, you just change the one they all inherit from.

Go to the property manager (View->Other Windows->Property Manager or View->Property Manager) and right click one of the configurations. choose "Add new project property sheet", give the new sheet a proper name. now when you right click the sheet you just created you can change the properties in it. you can add this sheet to any of the other configurations you have by right clicking it and selecting "Add Existing property sheet".

When you edit the properties of the configuration you can select for "Inherit from parent" this will set the value to whatever the parent has. Notice that for some fields the values are replaced - for instance "General->Output Directory" - while in others they are aggregated, for instance "C++->General->Additional Include Directories" The values of the proper configuration are added to the values inherited.