Are you using Visual Studio 2019, 2022 or 2026?
Does your Solution Explorer end up wandering off screen or get stuck under a pile of windows and you have a torrid time trying to find it? Or do you end up with a load of Tool Windows open and you don't want to reset window layout but would like to close them all?
Fret no more. Reign in naughty tool windows with this extension.
After installing the extension, you should see three new commands (circled in image) on the Visual Studio Tools menu :
- The first command, Show Solution Explorer will make the solution explorer FULLY VISIBLE even if it was partially or mostly offscreen before.
- The second command, Close all Tool Windows except Solution Explorer will close all tool windows except the solution explorer - very useful when you're in Tool Window Hell.
- The third command, Close all Tool Windows is the nuclear option and does as you expect. Every tool window goes, but your code windows will be left untouched.
I recommend you assign keyboard shortcuts to these commands. To do this, click Tools | Options then open Environment | Keyboard, like so:
Search for ScottTunstall in the Show Commands Containing textbox. You should see the 3 commands listed on screen. Assign shortcuts to each command as desired.