Visual Studio supports extensibility in a couple of ways. One way is to implement the IExtensibility2 interface; another is to implement the IDTWizard interface. An existing IDTWizard is contained in the VsWizard.dll. This wizard supports project items and project templates, permitting you to create a new project (like a console application). You also can use the VsWizard.dll wizard to implement your own templates.

In prior versions of VS.NET, you had to define a template file, modify some common script files (common.js and default.js), add some line items to a file named template.inf, create a wizard launch (.vsz) file, and create a VSDir file that indicated where the template was located, what it was called, and how to show it in the Add New Items dialog (or related dialogs). Visual Studio 2005 builds on the flexibility of XML, condensing this process and making it significantly quicker and easier.