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In the Solution Explorer, I clicked on "Scope to this" to display only a part of the solution. Now I can't find how to get back to normal view.

Closing/Reopening Solution Explorer won't work; I searched every menu item, and "New Solution Explorer View" didn't work either; I found nothing on Google.

I must be missing something obvious... There has to be an easy way to undo "Scope to this", right?

ThiefMaster
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Eldritch Conundrum
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    Oops, I finally found it... Just click the "Home" icon on the Solution Explorer. I suppose my question was stupid and should be deleted. – Eldritch Conundrum Mar 20 '13 at 08:28
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    No it was not. I was looking for this and your comment helped me. Sometimes the most obvious things are easy to miss. Anyway, reposting your comment as an answer so this question is properly answered. – ThiefMaster Apr 05 '13 at 08:57
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    Me too. Some of the UI design for the new MS paradigm is crazy counter-intuitive. I'm not the only one who could only shut down their fancy new Windows 8 machine from alt+f4 at the desktop for a couple weeks... – Talonj Jun 14 '13 at 21:35
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    me too.I was new to this command and your solution helped. – xrx215 Jun 10 '15 at 17:28
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    Three years later and this is still a horrible design by the Visual Studio team. Thank the gods for SO. – invert Apr 18 '16 at 08:02
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    @EldritchConundrum This wasn't stupid even a bit. I just asked myself if I am stupid because I had to google how to reset the scope lol. Thanks for this. Upvoted. – C4d Aug 18 '16 at 10:47
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    This is a good question, and terrible UI design. If you "do" something through a context menu, I would expect to be able to "undo" that something through the same context menu and not have to go hunting for hieroglyphics. +1 – DVK Feb 08 '18 at 13:45
  • Visual Studio 2022 - same ignernt UI! – IdahoB Jan 19 '23 at 22:07

2 Answers2

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Click the "Home" icon (third one by default, the one with a house pictogram) in the Solution explorer. This will revert the view to the full solution.

ThiefMaster
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    +1 PS is there any "pin" to "scope to this" ? cause sometimes its back to home... – Royi Namir Jun 02 '13 at 16:44
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    @RoyiNamir, if you use the forward and backward buttons (see my answer below) then you might have the behaviour you are looking for? – Stefan Mar 13 '15 at 11:43
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    Didnt work for me in VS2017.. just stuck in the "scoped" folder. dammit - had to restart VS – Piotr Kula May 11 '17 at 12:21
  • Didn't work for me in VS 2015. But I'm also having issues with getting contents of folders in my project to display, too, atm. I re-started VS to get out of it. – vapcguy Oct 25 '17 at 00:18
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    VS 2017, I had to close the Solution Explorer window then open a new one by the View menu. Then the Home button worked. – Kyle Huff Feb 22 '19 at 03:04
  • This is working in VS 2017 community edition, wondering why `back to orginial` or similar right click menu item is not there, as it is a common ux standard. – ibubi Apr 10 '19 at 07:34
  • You have just rescued me on VS2019.. that's why I love @Stackoverflow – Kayvan Salimi Sep 27 '20 at 06:13
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In addition to pressing the 'home' button you should also see, in the top left hand corner of the Solution Explorer, two arrows.

Pressing the left pointing one will take you back out of scope to this and pressing the right one will put you back into it.

Essentially, they work as forward and back buttons.

Extra:

You can also right click on projects and select 'New Solution Explorer Window' to have two separate solution explorers which can browse independently (note that changing the settings on one will effect the other).

Stefan
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    +1 for right-click and 'New Solution Explorer Window' -- essentially scopes to your selection and pulls that scope into a new explorer. Beautiful. – Sinaesthetic Jan 09 '16 at 20:18
  • Could the divebomber please leave a comment so I know how to improve the answer? – Stefan May 17 '17 at 07:57
  • @Stefan I wasn't the downvoter, but I'm not sure how independently the "New Solution Explorer Window" actually acts. When you launch the 2nd window, then toggle the "Show All Files" button, it actually makes the changes in both windows. – vapcguy Oct 25 '17 at 00:17
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    @vapcguy, that is actually a good point. The browsing is independant but the settings are not. I make that more clear – Stefan Oct 25 '17 at 10:51