VS2010: How to prevent changing a Horizontal Tab Group to a Vertical Tab Group when restarting?

Question

In Visual Studio I can create New Tab Group either by dragging or by right click a tab. When no tab group was created one can choose whether the group is vertical or horizontal. Later on it is possible to create only groups of the same type as first one.

Is it possible to change Horizontal to Vertical layout?

The main problem is that when VS is closed and opened again the vertical group is changed to a horizontal one.

Edit The problem is present in VS2012 and accepted solution works.

Answer 1

I had the same problem, where all of the sudden my tabgroups changed to vertical. Same symptoms: horizontal tab groups if I start VS2010 and then loaded project; vertical tab groups when opening project directly. I don't know what started it but I did run an experimental hive about the time this started.

This solution worked for me:

1. Open C:\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Settings\CurrentSettings.vssettings*
2. Find DocumentGroupContainer Orientation="Vertical"
3. Remove the Orientation="Vertical", (my settings had two of these, you could probably figure out which one corresponds to your problem, but I just deleted both of them)

*See "Tools | Options > Import and Export Settings" to find your actual settings file.