Visual Studio Solution Explorer, Highlight Active Item color

Question

In Visual Studio 2008, is there any way to change the background color of the highlighted item in the Solution Explorer? The current setting makes the item quite visible when the Solution Explorer has focus (blue), but when the editor has focus, the background color is a very light gray, which makes it near impossible to see. I hate having to navigate to a type's definition, and then have to give the Solution Explorer focus to see where in the solution the current file lies.

Many thanks.

Answer 1

It is related to a system color named "3D Objects" in the advanded color selector dialog box of Windows. If you change this color, using aero themes, it affects MDI windows and it also changes the color of the selected item in an inactive window. Logic, isn'it ??? Hope this will be helpfull.

Pierre.

Answer 2

Turns out this is a Windows setting, and VS has no control over it. If you want to delve into the dark art of custom windows skinning with a Hex editor (as is needed for Vista), then there is a tutorial here on how this can be done. Unsure which property of a Windows Theme affects this behavior though, as all that is mentioned in that tutorial is the Selected Item Highlighting when a window has focus.