Find and Replace, Environment, Options Dialog Box
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
Use this page of the Options dialog box to control message boxes and other aspects of a find and replace operation. You can access this dialog box from the Tools menu by selecting Options, expanding Environment, and then selecting Find and Replace.
Display informational messages
Select this option to display all Find and Replace informational messages that have the Always show this message option. For example, if you chose not to display the message "Find reached the starting point of the search.", selecting this option would cause this informational message to appear again when you use Find and Replace.
If you do not want to see any informational messages for Find and Replace, clear this option.
When you have cleared the Always show this message option on some, but not all, Find and Replace informational messages, the Display informational messages check box appears to be filled but not selected. To restore all optional Find and Replace messages, clear this option and then select it again.
Note
This option does not affect any Find and Replace informational messages that do not display the Always show this message option.
Display warning messages
Select this option to display all cautionary Find and Replace messages that have the Always show this message option. For example, if you chose not to display the Replace All warning message that appears when you attempt to make replacements in files not currently opened for editing, selecting this option would cause this warning message to appear again when you attempt to Replace All.
If you do not want to see any cautionary messages for Find and Replace, clear this option.
When you have cleared the Always show this message option on some, but not all, Find and Replace warning messages, the Display warning messages check box appears to be filled but not selected. To restore all optional Find and Replace messages, clear this option and then select it again.
Note
This option does not affect any Find and Replace warning messages that do not display the Always show this message option.
Automatically populate Find What with text from the editor
Select this option to paste the text on either side of the current editor's insertion point into the Find what field when you select any view of the Find and Replace window from the Edit menu. Clear this option to use the last search pattern from the previous search as the Find what string.
Automatically limit search to selection
Select this option when you want to set the search scope to just code that you've selected.
If you don't want to search only the code that you've selected, clear this option.
Use the editor background in the Find All References tool window
Select this option when you want the Find All References tool window to use the same background color as the editor. This is helpful if you use the dark theme or a custom theme with a dark background color. For more information about themes, see the Change fonts, colors, and themes in Visual Studio page.