VS2012 How to turn off editor tab colouring?

Question

I strain to read the tabs in the source code editor of Visual Studio 2012. I don't even understand what the different colors mean? They seem totally random. Black on brown or black on blue.... who choose that?

So I would like to turn off the colouring for the tabs and revert to black on white, or a light grey.

I've looked in:

Options>> Environment (General / Font and Colors)

but I cant see anything relevant. So how can I do this please?

Answer 1

The colors of each tab comes from productivity power tools. For each project power tools assign a colors, so developer can easily detect a file(if contain same name) belongs to which project.

For VS 2013 & 2015 you can easily remove those color by unchecked Colors tab by project following below steps

go to Tools > Options > Productivity Power Tools > Custom Document Well > General

Answer 2

Looks like you might have Productivity Power Tools installed? If so turn off Custom Document Well or look in the Options > Productivity Power Tools > Custom Document Well > Advanced, there is an option to set colour to Visual Studio.

Answer 3

Or you could set: (In VS2015)

Options > Productivity Power Tools > Custom Document Well > Advanced

Then under Colors and Gradients panel, in the Selected Tab drop down choose VS Colors ,

This allows you to keep colored tabs by project yet highlights the selected tab clearly, win win...

My selected Tab is now bright Blue all the time.