Visual Studio 2012 Tips Part 2 – Turn off Menu Upper Casing

Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate Splash ScreenVisual Studio 2012 has a quirk that many users despise. The Uppercase menu. Now personally I don’t mind it, but some developers simply hate it. Unfortunately, it’s not an option you can just enable or disable. Fortunately, there are people out there that have a solution for this (See Reference below).

Before we continue, the solution involves editing the registry. Modifying the registry can cause problems or unexpected results, so continue at your own risk. (Seeing as the intended audience will probably be developers, I guess you have no qualms with modifying the registry). Now that this warning is out of the way, let’s continue.

Starting Visual Studio 2012, we are presented with the following Start Page.

Visual Studio 2012 Start Page

The Uppercase menu is shouting at us from the top of the IDE. Go ahead and open up the Registry Editor. Navigate to the following path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftVisualStudio11.0General

For Windows 8 Express go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftVSWinExpress11.0General

For Web Express go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftVSWDExpress11.0General

Windows 8 Registry Editor

Now create a new DWORD value and call it SuppressUppercaseConversion and set to 1.

Windows 8 Registry Editor Add DWORD

After you have completed, your registry entry should look as follows:

Windows 8 Registry Entry New DWORD and Value

Now, restart Visual Studio 2012 and after the Start Page loads, you will see the results.

Visual Studio 2012 Start Page Lowercase Menu

This is a small change, but it makes Visual Studio slightly less ‘in-your-face’.

Source: Zain Naboulsi

Dirk Strauss

As a seasoned software developer with a long-standing career in C# and Visual Studio, I have had the privilege of working with a number of companies and learning from some of the most talented individuals in the industry. In addition to my professional experience, I have authored multiple books on topics such as C#, Visual Studio, and ASP.NET Core. My passion for programming is unwavering, and I am dedicated to staying current with the latest technology and sharing my expertise with others.