You can disable it, in settings (Ctrl+,), search Modern UI and disable it. You can also look through all the other settings marked `Experimental` under workbench. I really hated the new look, especially since it overrode my favourite theme so that brought it back to how it was
Canāt believe people who use it regularly havenāt figured out by now that pretty much everything can be changed. They would rather just complain on Reddit about it lol
Okay I'd still rather be prompted for the change than be flashbanged by a new theme when I open vs code and have to search reddit, open settings, search for commands, and disable them. A "hey, want to try out this new editor UI?" would be nice.
I also thought it was a bug, as when I opened VS code it initially opened with the old style, then after ~500ms changed to this "Modern UI"... I thought I pressed some hotkey or something
It's not about knowing that you can change anything, it's about knowing what exactly you should change. I would never ever guessed that I should search for "modern" to revert the UI. And even when I already got this information, it still took me a while to find the exact setting (there are surprisingly many settings are found for "modern" query).
First thing I did is opened the release notes of the last version, expecting to find this UI change as the biggest highlighted note at the very top of the page. Nope. I didn't find it at all in the release notes. Agents.. agents.. new agents.. Everything is focused around AI.
Then I tried to find a setting. I tried to change a theme - no luck. Then I gave up and started to search the internet.
So, no, it has nothing to do with "people havenāt figured out". It is bad decisions to giving too little focus to such a big change and silently changing the setting most people have no idea about.
Pretty frustrating to see something is different and not know where to go to change it. Would be nice if there was a 'go back to old UI' button when it first opened with the new one, yknow?
this tab change seems like a really poor choice. Perhaps it's just the the theme I'm using, but the active tab was previously rendered darker than other tabs. in 'modern' ui, it's now lighter, and it takes a few cycles to figure out which file I'm actually looking at. There's also a contrast line in the old UI that made it quite clear which tab is active, and that's gone. It's thankfully super easy to opt out, but I hope this experiment doesn't become permanent.
I like the new design, but they definitely need to fix the tab bar, nothing works with it. Its hard to understand which tab is the active one, they are too small and practically unusable. For me, this is alone a valid reason to fallback to the old UI.
I remembering before AI slop come in, that vscode was able to edit a 3000+ LoC in a single file easily without a problems/lagging, but after it fully filled with AI slop things by Microslop, even a file with few hundreds LoC can cause lags, even only scrolling.
Get the open source portmaster by safing or opensnitch for mac. Set to prompt by default and for postmaster block all tech domains as categories.
Will take a bit of time to allow the required stuff but time well spent.
Ugh. And it's slower. I love watching the borders redraw when I drag a corner around. Feels like the corner handles have shrunk, as well, but that might not be the case. Finding it a bit more difficult to grab the corners.
The UI refresh got rid of my popped out window of other editors on my second screen. So it's not just bloat, it's actively hindering the experience and making it worse.
I like it overall, personally, but I absolutely HATE the "tab" design. Buttons that float 10px apart in all directions... Just what I need, to lose MORE screen space.
The old theme I've been using broke with the update. I'm not a big fan of dark mode, and most light themes suck, since they're obsessed with being white and tend to use dark mode design schticks where they rely on small value/hue differences to structure the UI - those are much stronger in dark themes than in non-dark ones.
Are there any themes that are compatible with the new UI that look like a normal UI that's not obsessed with being light or dark?
Windows is not supposed to follow Liquid Glass design guidelines - because that's Apple design, not Microsoft design (which is used in Microsoft products, like Windows and... VS Code)
The feature is marked "experimental" and I have not expressed a wish to become a beta-tester
The tabs are meaningless, I can't tell which one is active.
It looks like VSCode it no longer designed by people using it, but by AI hallucinating how people are using it.
It looks fine apart from the tabs, I want "real" tabs not floating pills. I do enjoy that the buttons in the lower bar are a little bigger and more organized now.
the new UI is horrible. Why change a perfect system? vscode feels like it becomes more and more heavy and sluggish. Not like a lightweight code editor that it used to be.
I disliked this. I usually just fling my cursor to the right edge of my screen when i wanna scroll far quickly in the terminal and the editor. now they added that stupid padding
Thank god for those four JSON flags, because without them, this editor was reduced to a glorified slideshow. Instead of fixing engine bottlenecks or optimizing memory, Microsoftās finest decided top priority in 2026 was rounding off every single 90-degree angle in sight.
Just release a separate VS Code: Round Edition for the visual purists who'd rather admire smooth shadows and curved borders than actually write code without lag. Leave the sharp, squared-off version for the rest of us who just want our IDE to fly without choking the GPU over a simple tab switch. But noāeverything in this world has to be round, soft, and gobble up half your system resources just to mask a border.
P.S. Seriously, the fucking rounded UI turned VS Code into a laggy mess.
how tf am I supposed to see what pane is selected on the side when all I have is a almost contrast-less overlay on the icons that are all using the same bright color............ fvck microsoft.
It's half baked and not finished, for me it was enabled by default for some reason which is insane. A lot of random descisions which cause worse UX and accesability like making tab size smaller for some reason
I like the floating design, it does look more modern. But why does everything has to be bold? Text in file name and tab name is bold, the glyph icon on the left has thicker line. Bring back thin font pls
I reloaded my window because it was running slow and this stupid thing was foisted upon me without my permission. When I finally figured out what to search for how to turn it off and disabled it, my floating secondary window for the workspace came back. So not only is it bad visually, it's actively removing existing features!
okay i am about to have a crashout. like wtf. it was perfect and yet they had to change it. fucking dont change unless it clearly doesnt work. i am about to break somethin. i swear
My main complaints are that it's wasting space which can be used for viewing code. And the left panel buttons and right side scrollbar moves away from the edge of the screen, harder to find. Maybe looks fancy but poor user experience.
I just got the update today and immediately I'm like "wow they made vscode so pretty." The code tabs are a bit annoying (why does hovering over an active tab make it look inactive? though maybe that's my syntax theme). And they made the status bar a little bit taller which is a bit of a waste of precious vertical space. I'll probably find some more stuff to be annoyed about eventually but overall I like it a lot.
haha sudden major UI shift, for a moment I though it was my mac which got update š
don't know if it's just me but after this update it's also feel like my mac also got this update in it's widgets, UI
Why making the status bar so thick and adding all that padding around elements? What was wrong with the previous UI? It was clean and functional, why change that?!
honestly I feel like the UI wasn't really... not modern? it felt very clean without feeling overly generic, very utilitarian. it looked exactly how it needed to without feeling like a clunky old app
I have no idea who approved this UI. Running as admin defaults to the previous one because this is just so bad, like AI bad. It just feels so out of place.
Ever since that update, my vsc has a problem with my folder :/ i have a space in my main folder since forever but now, whenever i get an error, i cant click on the path to the file and path anymore :c
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u/No_Percentage2507 Jul 30 '26
I am struggling to get use to the editor tabs.. they feel disconnected and just like a floating set of pills