Windows 10, latest updates installed. Visual Studio 2017.  Tool bar item vMicro, help, leads to the web pages with this:  Visual Micro - Release 20.09.10.1 - 11th September 2020 - VS 2017-2019, AS7

Summary:  What steps are needed to get VS to store a project on my D drive and to be able to return to it as a “previous” project or solution?

Details

Something I am doing prevents VS from saving and re-opening a project.   Here are the steps taken to create, then save, then attempt to reopen said project.
Start VS
File -> New -> Arduino Project
Enter a name:  “minimum”, click OK
Response: A folder with this name already exists.  Would you like to open the sketch if it exists.  Click OK, it opens the code that was started earlier.  The code does nothing but blink an LED.
Save the project as follows:
File -> Save minimum.io As….          Click it
Navigate to:  D:\visual_studio\projects and click Save
Do you want to replace: Yes
Close VS
VS prompts with: Save changes to the following items:  minimum.sln and minimum*
Click Yes
VS closes
Now try to resume, Launch VS
Click File -> Recent Projects and solutions
This solicits the display of one project:  ac_condensor_monitor.sln ( C:\Users/bryan/documents….)
I expect to find the most recent project, the one just saved named “minimum”  
So just to check:  Tools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions -> Locations
Look in field: Projects location to find: D:\visual_studio\projects
The next two fields: User project templates location:  and User item templates location:  were left at the initial values.
What must be done differently to save a solution/project in my selected directory: D:\visual_studio\projects

Thanks for the reply.
Looking as carefully as possible, there is no method to to accomplish:
Quote:

What is there, does not tell the user where to find the existing solution.  So to keep all projects off the C drive, the user must create a new project, hunt it down, then copy the directory over to the D drive (D for example)

This is a problem that I had hoped that moving to Visual Studio would correct.  I have used VS for many years and until now it did not require that source code be named the same as the enclosing directory.  That is not a real onerous requirement, but it is basically without merit.

And just to state the other problem explicitly:  There is no method to save a project where the user wants it saved.  The reason for this should be obvious.  Never keep your important data on the operating system drive.

End result:  VS is a better environment that Genuino, so far.  (Except that I cannot get it to work, but that's another thread here.)  But it does appear to propagate some of the problems / idiosyncrasies of Genuino.  I did, and continue to, expect better in this much more mature environment.

Again, thanks for your reply.

This is great. Very fast to publish new version: Datatypes in STM32 are recognized. 
IDE "Save as" added. Congratulations! Thank you!
Worth to buy.

You could also use the 'Project/Export template..' option of VS to create a template from the project. You can then use this template as the base for a new project with a new name.

I used this in the past (2 or 3 years ago) BUT there was a problem that not all the files were included in the template (an MS problem I reported). I don't know if this has been fixed as I've not tried recently.