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Re-enable title bar in Visual Studio 2019

I've downloaded the preview version of Visual Studio 2019 and the title bar is disabled by default.

This doesn't work for me as I currently develop C# applications using multiple instances of visual studio at a time, and I like knowing what window relates to which solution, and whether I am running with elevated privileges.

I've found that I can re-enable the title bar by going to the 'Preview Features' section in options, but this will obviously not be in the real release of Visual Studio 2019.

I've searched online, but have only found feature requests to not remove the title bar.

Is there currently any way to re-enable the title bar in VS 2019 (that is not related to the preview features option)?

Solution

  • It appears that some time around March 2019 the option to restore the title bar through a setting in the IDE was restored. I can confirm that the option remains in the latest release and preview versions of Visual Studio as of June 2019.

    Go to:

    Tools > Options > Environment > Preview Features

    and untick

    "Use compact menu and search bar (requires restart)"

    enter image description here

    Then click "OK" and restart Visual Studio.

    If the setting gets removed again, it may still be possible to fall back to editing the file CurrentSettings.vssettings. Change:

    <PropertyValue name="IsMinimalVsEnabled">True</PropertyValue>

    to

    <PropertyValue name="IsMinimalVsEnabled">False</PropertyValue>

    Look for the file in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\16.0_xxxxxxxx\Settings\CurrentSettings.vssettings (where 16.0_xxxxxxxx will be the version you have installed).

    VS2022 Update

    The setting is now named UseMinimalMode in CurrentSettings.vssettings