Options dialog box: Environment > General
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
Use this page to change color themes, status bar settings, and file extension associations, among other options, for the integrated development environment (IDE). You can access the Options dialog box by opening the Tools menu, choosing Options, opening the Environment folder and then choosing the General page.
Visual Experience
Color Theme
Choose the Blue, Blue (Extra Contrast), Dark, or Light color theme for the IDE.
You can install additional predefined themes and create custom themes by downloading and installing the Visual Studio Color Theme Designer for the version that you're currently using, as follows:
- Color Theme Designer for Visual Studio 2022
- Color Theme Designer for Visual Studio 2019.
- Color Theme Editor for Visual Studio 2017
After you install this tool, additional color themes appear in the Color Theme list box.
Apply title case styling to menu bar
Menus use title case styling by default. Uncheck this option to use all uppercase styling instead.
Automatically adjust visual experience based on client performance
Specifies whether Visual Studio sets the adjustment to the visual experience automatically or you set the adjustment explicitly. This adjustment may change the display of colors from gradients to flat colors, or it may restrict the use of animations in menus or popup windows.
Tip
Windows 10 has a setting that says Let Windows try to fix apps so they're not blurry. Turning that setting on is recommended if Visual Studio appears blurry on your monitor. Consider upgrading to Visual Studio 2019, which has significantly improved display clarity because it is a per-monitor dots per inch aware application.
Enable rich client experience
Enables the full visual experience of Visual Studio, including gradients and animations. Clear this option when using Remote Desktop connections or older graphics adapters, because these features may have poor performance in those cases. This option is available only when you clear the Automatically adjust visual experience based on client option.
Use hardware graphics acceleration if available
Uses hardware graphics acceleration if it is available, rather than software acceleration.
Other
Items to show in Window menu
Customizes the number of windows that appear in the Windows list of the Window menu. Enter a number between 1 and 24. The default value is 10.
Items shown in recently used lists
Customizes the number of most recently used projects and files that appear on the File menu. Enter a number between 1 and 24. The default value is 10. This is an easy way to retrieve recently used projects and files.
Show status bar
Displays the status bar. The status bar is located at the bottom of the IDE window and displays information about the progress of ongoing operations.
Close button affects active tool window only
Specifies that when the Close button is clicked, only the tool window that has focus is closed and not all of the tool windows in the docked set. By default, this option is selected.
Auto Hide button affects active tool window only
Specifies that when the Auto Hide button is clicked, only the tool window that has focus is hidden automatically and not all of the tool windows in the docked set. By default, this option is not selected.