The Visual Studio is constantly reviewing items that have been posted to their User Voice site. One of the items that I’ve been asking for, installation customization in Visual Studio, has been voted up to number 4 on the list. Keep the votes coming.

Another item that I have voted for is adding color back to Visual Studio. Yesterday morning, the Visual Studio team announced that changes have been made and will be reflected in the Visual Studio Release Candidate. While I still feel there can be more work on the UI, I think it is heading back in the right direction. I get the consistent look that the teams are going for across products and Microsoft is betting heavily in the metro-style.

Some of the items that have been changed include changes to the icons, adding in more color to icons and menu items, and creating a lighter background.

Here’s a quick before and after shot borrowed from their post:

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Here’s what it looks like based on the state of your development process:

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Hopefully we’ll continue to see more improvement before the RC.