--- title: Stop alt-tabbing into the wrong Visual Studio | daily.dev description: Visual Studio 2026's new settings experience lets you scope any setting, including the color theme, to a specific solution rather than your whole user profile.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/stop-alt-tabbing-into-the-wrong-visual-studio-nhfboea3g twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Stop alt-tabbing into the wrong Visual Studio | daily.dev og:description: Visual Studio 2026's new settings experience lets you scope any setting, including the color theme, to a specific solution rather than your whole user profile.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/stop-alt-tabbing-into-the-wrong-visual-studio-nhfboea3g og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/nhfBOeA3g.png og:image:alt: Stop alt-tabbing into the wrong Visual Studio og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Stop alt-tabbing into the wrong Visual Studio **[Visual Studio Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/vs)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Visual Studio 2026's new settings experience lets you scope any setting, including the color theme, to a specific solution rather than your whole user profile. Switch the Applies to dropdown in Tools > Options from user profile to solution, and changes like theme color apply only while that solution is open. Settings are stored in a settings.VisualStudio.json file in the solution root, which can be committed to source control so a whole team shares the same setup, or gitignored to keep it personal. This solves the problem of alt-tabbing into the wrong instance when running multiple solutions side by side, since each can get a visually distinct theme. An older extension, Solution Colors, offers finer-grained per-pixel tinting for those who want more control than the built-in feature provides. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I set a different color theme for each solution in Visual Studio 2026? Open Tools > Options, find the Applies to dropdown at the top, switch it from your user profile to the current solution, then change the color theme. The change takes effect immediately with no restart. This uses the new settings experience introduced in Visual Studio 2026, which scopes settings per solution instead of only globally. _Track IDE feature rollouts like per-solution settings on daily.dev as you configure your team's Visual Studio workflow._ ### Where does Visual Studio store per-solution settings and can I share them with my team? Per-solution settings are stored in a file called settings.VisualStudio.json in the solution root folder, next to the .sln or .slnx file. Committing this file to source control means everyone who clones the repo gets the same IDE setup automatically; adding it to .gitignore instead keeps the settings personal to you. _Developers standardizing team tooling can follow config-as-code changes like this via daily.dev._ ### What's the difference between Visual Studio's built-in per-solution theme feature and the Solution Colors extension? The built-in feature switches the entire color theme per solution, is officially supported, syncs with settings, and can be checked into source control via settings.VisualStudio.json. The Solution Colors extension is more granular, tinting only specific parts of the IDE per solution rather than switching the whole theme, and can auto-pick a color without manual choice. _Comparing built-in features against extensions is easier when developers follow tool updates on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Make Visual Studio look the way you want](https://daily.dev/posts/make-visual-studio-look-the-way-you-want-6glnkivrz) · Visual Studio Blog · 9 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#microsoft](https://daily.dev/tags/microsoft), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#visual-studio](https://daily.dev/tags/visual-studio) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/stop-alt-tabbing-into-the-wrong-visual-studio-nhfboea3g) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Stop alt-tabbing into the wrong Visual Studio","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/stop-alt-tabbing-into-the-wrong-visual-studio-nhfboea3g","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/stop-alt-tabbing-into-the-wrong-visual-studio-nhfboea3g"},"datePublished":"2026-09-02T14:04:09.323Z","dateModified":"2026-09-02T14:12:29.042Z","description":"Visual Studio 2026's new settings experience lets you scope any setting, including the color theme, to a specific solution rather than your whole user profile....","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/51d6ce57e0c8803f290e6a9fe063d569?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/51d6ce57e0c8803f290e6a9fe063d569?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Visual Studio Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Visual Studio Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/03971923d4044f74ac177dc752e1e752","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/vs"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/stop-alt-tabbing-into-the-wrong-visual-studio-nhfboea3g","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"microsoft,productivity,visual-studio","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Visual Studio Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/vs"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Stop alt-tabbing into the wrong Visual Studio"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/stop-alt-tabbing-into-the-wrong-visual-studio-nhfboea3g#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I set a different color theme for each solution in Visual Studio 2026?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Open Tools > Options, find the Applies to dropdown at the top, switch it from your user profile to the current solution, then change the color theme. The change takes effect immediately with no restart. This uses the new settings experience introduced in Visual Studio 2026, which scopes settings per solution instead of only globally. Track IDE feature rollouts like per-solution settings on daily.dev as you configure your team's Visual Studio workflow."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Where does Visual Studio store per-solution settings and can I share them with my team?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Per-solution settings are stored in a file called settings.VisualStudio.json in the solution root folder, next to the .sln or .slnx file. Committing this file to source control means everyone who clones the repo gets the same IDE setup automatically; adding it to .gitignore instead keeps the settings personal to you. Developers standardizing team tooling can follow config-as-code changes like this via daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What's the difference between Visual Studio's built-in per-solution theme feature and the Solution Colors extension?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The built-in feature switches the entire color theme per solution, is officially supported, syncs with settings, and can be checked into source control via settings.VisualStudio.json. The Solution Colors extension is more granular, tinting only specific parts of the IDE per solution rather than switching the whole theme, and can auto-pick a color without manual choice. Comparing built-in features against extensions is easier when developers follow tool updates on daily.dev."}}]} ```