Maybe thiis is not fully helpfull to the above, but I do change the props file in: C:\Users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0\Microsoft.Cpp.x64.user.props (other targets in the same folder) to something like the below: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns=" http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"> <ImportGroup Label="PropertySheets"> </ImportGroup> <PropertyGroup Label="UserMacros" /> <PropertyGroup> <IncludePath>$(VC_X64_INCLUDE);$(BOOST_ROOT);$(IncludePath)</IncludePath> <LibraryPath>$(VC_X64_LIB);$(LibraryPath)</LibraryPath> <ExecutablePath>$(VC_X64_DLL);$(VC_X64_EXE);$(ExecutablePath)</ExecutablePath> <OutDir>$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\</OutDir> <IntDir>$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\</IntDir> </PropertyGroup> <ItemDefinitionGroup> <ClCompile> <WarningLevel>Level4</WarningLevel> <Optimization>MaxSpeedHighLevel</Optimization> <Parallelization>true</Parallelization> <RuntimeLibrary>MultiThreaded</RuntimeLibrary> <UseProcessorExtensions>HOST</UseProcessorExtensions> <ErrorLimit>3</ErrorLimit> </ClCompile> <Link> <OutputFile>$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\$(TargetName)$(TargetExt)</OutputFile> </Link> </ItemDefinitionGroup> <ItemGroup /> </Project> VC_X64_INCLUDE, etc. is env-variable that points to the include folder of my libs (organised linux-style), so I don't need to edit my projects in case I move the libraries folder. Any new project will now automatically include those defaults or (in case of an exisiting project) will default to them, iff you select the default settings in the IDE. Obviously one can add other options to the XML-file. degski