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Visual Studio Toolbox is a sleek system tray application for Windows that helps you manage all your Visual Studio installations in one place. Think of it as your personal command center for Visual Studio

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🛠️ Visual Studio Toolbox

Your Visual Studio installations, beautifully organized

.NET WinUI 3 Windows License


🎯 What is Visual Studio Toolbox?

Visual Studio Toolbox is a sleek system tray application for Windows that helps you manage all your Visual Studio installations in one place. Think of it as your personal command center for Visual Studio! 🚀

💡 Inspired by JetBrains Toolbox - bringing the same convenience to the Visual Studio ecosystem!


✨ Features

Feature Description
🔍 Auto-Detection Automatically discovers all VS 2019, 2022, and 2026 installations
🎨 Beautiful UI Modern WinUI 3 interface with light/dark mode support
🚀 Quick Launch Launch any VS instance with a single click
🧪 Experimental Hives See and launch experimental/custom VS hives
💻 Developer Shells Launch VS Developer Command Prompt or PowerShell
📁 Quick Access Open installation folders and AppData directories
🖥️ Windows Terminal Integrates with your Windows Terminal profiles
📌 System Tray Lives quietly in your system tray until needed
⚙️ Configurable Startup and window behavior settings
🪟 Custom Chrome Sleek custom title bar with VS purple branding

📸 Screenshots

Instance List

See all your Visual Studio installations at a glance, including version info, build numbers, and channel badges:

Instance List

Hover State

Hover over any installation to highlight it with the signature purple accent:

Instance List Hover

Quick Actions Menu

Access powerful options for each installation - open folders, launch dev shells, and more:

Instance Menu

Settings

Configure startup behavior and window preferences:

Settings


🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

Build & Run

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/CalvinAllen/VSToolbox.git

# Navigate to the project
cd VSToolbox

# Build and run
dotnet run --project src/CodingWithCalvin.VSToolbox

🎮 Usage

🖱️ Installed Tab

  • Click the ▶️ play button to launch Visual Studio
  • Click the ⚙️ gear button for more options:
    • 📂 Open Explorer - Open the VS installation folder
    • 💻 VS CMD Prompt - Launch Developer Command Prompt
    • 🐚 VS PowerShell - Launch Developer PowerShell
    • 📁 Open Local AppData - Access VS settings and extensions

⚙️ Settings Tab

  • Launch on startup - Start Visual Studio Toolbox when Windows starts
  • Start minimized - Launch directly to the system tray
  • Minimize to tray - Hide to system tray when minimizing
  • Close to tray - Hide to system tray instead of exiting

📌 System Tray

  • Click the tray icon to show/hide the window
  • Right-click for quick menu (Show / Exit)

🏗️ Architecture

VSToolbox/
├── 📁 src/
│   ├── 📁 CodingWithCalvin.VSToolbox/        # 🎨 WinUI 3 Application
│   │   ├── 📁 Views/                         # XAML pages
│   │   ├── 📁 ViewModels/                    # MVVM view models
│   │   └── 📁 Services/                      # App services
│   │
│   └── 📁 CodingWithCalvin.VSToolbox.Core/   # 📦 Core Library
│       ├── 📁 Models/                        # Data models
│       └── 📁 Services/                      # VS detection & launch
│
└── 📁 tests/                                 # 🧪 Unit tests

🛠️ Tech Stack

Technology Purpose
💜 C# 13 Language
🎯 .NET 10 Runtime
🎨 WinUI 3 UI Framework
📦 Windows App SDK 1.8 Windows APIs
🔔 H.NotifyIcon.WinUI System tray
🧰 CommunityToolkit.Mvvm MVVM pattern

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

  1. 🍴 Fork the repository
  2. 🌿 Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
  3. 💾 Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
  4. 📤 Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
  5. 🎉 Open a Pull Request

👥 Contributors

CalvinAllen timheuer


📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.


💖 Acknowledgments

  • 🙏 Microsoft for Visual Studio and WinUI
  • 💡 JetBrains Toolbox for the inspiration
  • 🎨 The .NET community for amazing libraries

Made with 💜 by Coding with Calvin

⭐ Star this repo if you find it useful! ⭐

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Visual Studio Toolbox is a sleek system tray application for Windows that helps you manage all your Visual Studio installations in one place. Think of it as your personal command center for Visual Studio

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