How can I switch themes in Visual Studio 2012

Question

The Visual Studio 2012 offers two themes  Light and Dark  I want to switch the theme to Dark  but I m not able to find any menus or options to do that   I found out a way importing settings from   Microsoft Visual Studio 11 0 Common7 IDE  FontsAndColorsThemes 1ded0138-47ce-435e-84ef-9ec1f439b749 vssettings   and the code editor is now in Dark theme but other windows are still in Light theme such as the Solution Explorer  Toolbox  and Toolbars   What should I do to switch themes

User · Answer

For those who are using  High Contrast  windows themes but still want a regular Visual Studio theme you might notice that the theme selector drop down is disabled  You can still change it by doing the following      Going to the registry key  HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft VisualStudio 11 0 Config Themes  or whichever version of VS you are using  Export the key of the theme you want  it s a bunch of random letters   numbers  to a  reg file  Then copy the  high contrast  key s name  again random letters   numbers  Delete the high contrast key and then rename the dark theme to the copied name Then import the exported theme from the reg file    This permanently sets the theme to the one you ve chosen

User · Answer

Tools--  Options-- General-- Color Theme

User · Answer

Tools -  Options - Environment -  General  Or use new Quick Launch to open Options     For more themes  download Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor for more themes including good old VS2010 theme   Look at this video for a demo

User · Answer

In Visual Studio 2012  open the Options dialog  Tools -  Options    Under  Environment -  General  the first setting is  Color theme    You can use this to switch between Light and Dark   The shell theme is distinct from the editor theme--you can use any editor fonts and colors settings with either shell theme     There is also a Color Theme Editor extension that can be used to create new themes

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Try the steps in here  If you don t have Visual Studio 2010 installed  some icons are provided   http   supunlivera blogspot com 2012 09 visual-studio-2012-theme-change-get-vs html

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Slightly off topic  but for those of you that want to modify the built-in colors of the Dark Light themes you can use this little tool I wrote for Visual Studio 2012   More info here   Modify Visual Studio 2012 Dark  and Light  Themes  Source Code

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This worked for me   Go to Tools- gt Options Last Item - gt Color theme Drop down and select any

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Also  you can use or create and share Visual Studio color schemes  https   studiostyl es

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For extra themes  including making VS 2012 look like VS 2010 see  http   visualstudiogallery msdn microsoft com 366ad100-0003-4c9a-81a8-337d4e7ace05

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The Blue theme is now supported via Visual Studio update 2  and is accessed like the answer chosen for this question

[themes] How can I switch themes in Visual Studio 2012

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