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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?

Peter Mortensen
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Ricky
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10 Answers10

718

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.

O hai!

There is also a Color Theme Editor extension that can be used to create new themes.

LordWilmore
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James McNellis
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    Is it still possible to use the light UI but the dark theme editor. I haven't figured out a way yet. I used this method before but that doesn't work in the RC. http://codepolice.net/get-the-dark-theme-for-the-editor-but-not-for-the-rest-of-the-ui-in-visual-studio-11/ – Olaj Jun 26 '12 at 06:47
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    With the dark theme, many of the little icons looks uglier than a pig's arse because there are little white jagged halos around them. I found using the windows 7 magnifier to invert all colors looks nicer, unix terminal reverse style: http://www.wikihow.com/Invert-Colors-on-Windows-7 – Nick A Miller Jul 16 '12 at 02:03
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    @NickAMiller: The halos were a known issue with the Release Candidate. The final RTM release of Visual Studio 2012 does not exhibit this problem. – James McNellis Aug 18 '12 at 17:35
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    Update 2 in Visual Studio 2012 brings the blue color theme, which is similar to Visual Studio 2010 default. – Aki May 07 '13 at 12:49
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    better as dark.. but still... sooo bad! – Sellorio Jul 06 '13 at 06:07
  • Anyone know if there is a VS keyboard short-cut to quickly switch between Dark and Light themes. When I do code reviews, the reviewer can't read my Dark code... – AndyM Feb 26 '14 at 20:50
  • Is there a way to apply different colors to different instances of visual studio? for example, I want kernel.sln red environment, and Product.Sln Blue. thanks! – Yogurtu Apr 30 '15 at 13:57
  • You can't do this per-Solution, but you can do this by running `devenv` with the `/rootsuffix` option. E.g., run `devenv /rootsuffix red` and change the theme to red, then run `devenv /rootsuffix blue` and change the theme to blue. Then whenever you run devenv with rootsuffix `red` or `blue`, you'll get the red theme and the blue theme, respectively. Basically, each rootsuffix gets its own state; it's primarily used for developing and testing Visual Studio extensions, but it can be used for other purposes like this one. – James McNellis May 01 '15 at 18:34
67

Tools -> Options ->Environment -> General

Or use new Quick Launch to open Options Use Quick Launch to open Options

enter image description here

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.

CharithJ
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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

Ralph Willgoss
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Cihan Yakar
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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

Brian Chavez
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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...

  1. Going to the registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0_Config\Themes (or whichever version of VS you are using)
  2. Export the key of the theme you want (it's a bunch of random letters / numbers) to a .reg file.
  3. Then copy the "high contrast" key's name (again random letters / numbers)
  4. Delete the high contrast key and then rename the dark theme to the copied name
  5. Then import the exported theme from the reg file.

This permanently sets the theme to the one you've chosen.

Eric Alan Solo
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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

engaso
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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.

Kenmeister
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Tools--> Options-->General-->Color Theme

user3430861
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Also, you can use or create and share Visual Studio color schemes: https://studiostyl.es/

ionat
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    Just found and love this site. Lots of nice themes, also with user votes to guide you. The default dark theme had too low contrast for me.. trying Weke Road right now. For info on how to install, see the FAQ. Right now, it only supports up to 2013, have not tried with 2015. – Andreas Reiff Oct 07 '15 at 07:15
1

This worked for me!

Go to menu Tools → Options (the last ttem) → Color theme drop down and select Any.

Enter image description here

Peter Mortensen
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Praveen Kumar Rejeti
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