SQL Server Management Studio 2012 Color Theme Support

This information is a summarization from Brad Gearon’s blog (blog doesn't exist any longer, hence no link). All credits go to the him and all the blog contributors. I added here so I can remember the steps for myself.

These are the things needed to support color theme in SQL Server Management Studio 2012.

• Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor(http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/366ad100-0003-4c9a-81a8-337d4e7ace05)
  If the 2012 version doesn’t work, use the 2010 version.
• Download a theme from (http://studiostyl.es/)

Putting it together (this is from Arthur from the Brad’s blog. Thanks Arthur!)…

1. Install the 2012 Color Theme Editor.
2. Find the files somehwere in “C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Extensions\” .. for me, it was in “\shvn3avp.com” for the current version of the plugin.
3. Copy those files to a new folder: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\Extensions\VSTheme”
4. Now extract the extension.vsixmanifest file from Brad’s vstheme.zip file and replace the one in “…ManagementStudio\Extensions\VSTheme”.
   
   Note: The important difference in the vsixmanifest files is the lines:

ssms
instead of visual studio product numbers

5. Start SQL Server Management Studio and enjoy the colors.