font on visual studio "find symbol results" window - visual-studio-2010

Question

I have this very annoying visual issue with the "find symbol results" window on VS 2010. I have few sessions running and on the more recent sessions I have opened the font seems to be very ugly and bold. I was trying to set it to default font by clicking the "Use Defaults" under Options -> Font and Colors but it want change. Can someone please help ,e.

Answer 1

I found that the following seems to work:
Go to Tools -> Options -> Environment > Fonts and Colours
Choose Show settings for: [All Text Tool Windows]
For Display items: Plain Text, click the Bold checkbox and click OK
Do the same again, but untick the Bold checkbox to revert it.
If it doesn't change immediately, try restarting Visual Studio
Mind you, Find Symbol Results isn't really a text window, so maybe setting and resetting any font will work. I don't know.

Answer 2

I found someone on MSDN who had a similar issue.
I couldn't believe this would fix it, but I went to Personalization, and changed the theme to Windows 7 Basic, and back to my own Aero theme, and the Find Symbol Results went back to a nice font.
I don't know how this could fix the issue, but it worked for me...

Answer 3

None of the answers thus far worked for me. Mr Anderson's looked good except I just wanted the default font, not a custom one and he noted the settings file was nearly empty to begin with so I felt the fix should involve removing settings somewhere, not adding more. What worked was choosing Tools > Options... > Environment > Fonts and Colors. Then in the "Show Settings For:" drop down, I picked "Environment Font". It was set to Automatic. I changed it to a random one (Academy Engraved LTE) and hit the OK button to apply it. This changed fonts all over VS including in the Find Symbols Results window. I changed it back to Automatic and the font and icons went back to normal.
For complete accuracy's sake, at the point that I did this, I had already restored VS to my most recently backed up settings, and then to the default settings before trying this. I'm guessing it would work without those steps but since it changes to the funky font on its own, I don't know how to test it.

Answer 4

This is how I fix it in VS2008, I assume the same would apply to 2010.
Open Tools -> Options -> Expand Environment -> Fonts and Colors
Click "Use Defaults"
Click OK
This restores it every time for me, no idea why it suddenly changes either.

Answer 5

Just had this problem again today and followed my own instructions above with complete success. The 'Find Symbol Results' pane updated on the fly.
Now, one thing that might be why it works for me and not for others. I previously took a look at the saved settings file and worked out how the customised Font and Colour settings were saved.
Out of the box, there's no customisation and therefore this XML node is pretty empty. This is the default XML node from an old saved settings
<Category name="Environment_FontsAndColors" Category="{1EDA5DD4-927A-43a7-810E-7FD247D0DA1D}" Package="{DA9FB551-C724-11d0-AE1F-00A0C90FFFC3}" RegisteredName="Environment_FontsAndColors" PackageName="Visual Studio Environment Package">
<FontsAndColors Version="2.0">
<Categories/>
</FontsAndColors>
<PropertyValue name="Version">2</PropertyValue>
</Category>
After making customisations, they show up here, like this
<Category name="Environment_FontsAndColors" Category="{1EDA5DD4-927A-43a7-810E-7FD247D0DA1D}" Package="{DA9FB551-C724-11d0-AE1F-00A0C90FFFC3}" RegisteredName="Environment_FontsAndColors" PackageName="Visual Studio Environment Package">
<FontsAndColors Version="2.0">
<Categories>
<Category GUID="{B20C0001-0836-4535-A5E8-96E595B1F094}" FontName="Monaco" FontSize="7" CharSet="1" FontIsDefault="No">
<Items/>
</Category>
</Categories>
</FontsAndColors>
<PropertyValue name="Version">2</PropertyValue>
</Category>
The problem is, the VS2010 Font and Colour settings panel doesn't list the Find Symbols panel so you can't set the font, but there is a way to set it manually.
There is another XML node that defines some behaviour of Environment_FindSymbols. It has a GUID that you can use to create the Category node defining the the panels Font and Colour.
This is the node to find. Make a note of the Category= GUID value ... probably the same for all VS2010 installations.
<Category name="Environment_FindSymbol" Category="{C93260BC-0C07-484a-8188-6F4763BD7FD4}" Package="{DA9FB551-C724-11d0-AE1F-00A0C90FFFC3}" RegisteredName="Environment_FindSymbol" PackageName="Visual Studio Environment Package">
<PropertyValue name="FindOptionsIsExpanded">false</PropertyValue>
<PropertyValue name="LookinReferencesIsChecked">true</PropertyValue>
<PropertyValue name="MatchCaseIsChecked">false</PropertyValue>
<PropertyValue name="Type">2</PropertyValue>
<PropertyValue name="SelectedScope">{B1BA9461-FC54-45B3-A484-CB6DD0B95C94}</PropertyValue>
<PropertyValue name="SelectedScopeSubScope">0</PropertyValue>
</Category>
Using the noted Category= GUID value "{C93260BC-0C07-484a-8188-6F4763BD7FD4}" create a Category node for the FontAndColors node.
e.g.
<Category GUID="{C93260BC-0C07-484A-8188-6F4763BD7FD4}" FontName="Monaco" FontSize="7" CharSet="0" FontIsDefault="No">
<Items/>
</Category>
Set it with the FontName and FontSize of your choice. Probably best to customise another pane to get an example node.
Now add this new node to the other
Remember, this is XML, so you have to make sure the start and end tags match. If you're starting with the saved settings from an out of the box installation, then the tag needs to be changed to and its between these tags that you insert the new node you create from the Environment_FindSymbols GUID.
Here's an example for you to use. change Monaco to some font you have installed on your machine.
<Category name="Environment_FontsAndColors" Category="{1EDA5DD4-927A-43a7-810E-7FD247D0DA1D}" Package="{DA9FB551-C724-11d0-AE1F-00A0C90FFFC3}" RegisteredName="Environment_FontsAndColors" PackageName="Visual Studio Environment Package">
<FontsAndColors Version="2.0">
<Categories>
<Category GUID="{C93260BC-0C07-484A-8188-6F4763BD7FD4}" FontName="Monaco" FontSize="7" CharSet="0" FontIsDefault="No">
<Items/>
</Category>
</Categories>
</FontsAndColors>
<PropertyValue name="Version">2</PropertyValue>
</Category>
Once this is in the a saved settings, you can import them and the Find Symbol Result pane will appear in the font of your choice. Then the next time the issue of it appearing in a fugly font, just do the export/import and this new XML node will remain until you manually remove it.
Hope this helps.

Answer 6

So, I've managed to reset the font on the "Find Symbols" panel in VS 2010. My panel had somehow changed to Helvetica or some other larger bolder non anti-aliased fugly font.
Based on the instructions to Export/Import and Reset settings, I took a different approach. I Exported then re-imported my settings and there's no need to close the DevEnv and restart with command line /reset option or loose any environment settings you've taken time to setup.
During export/import, when you see the Yellow triangled Exclamation symbol, just ignore the warning and tick everything as this is just for local machine and personal use - they warn of intellectual property (exporting) and harmful side effects (importing), which I guess is true if you're going to share the files.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Mr A

Answer 7

Just ran into this myself.
For me, the solution was:
Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Fonts and Colors
Show settings for: Execution Plan
Set font and size to what most other windows are using. In my case, that was converting from 10-point Courier New to 9-point Consolas.

Answer 8

you can restore the visual studio to its default settings