I loaded 1709 and I see a strange colour highlighting , unfortunately not copying in this sample
I have previously used the IDE Find and Replace to find "ProcessStep" , I now see ProcessStep in the above snippet in a yellow highlight . And all other occurences of the words.
I also see the "New" word in purple
I disable VAX it goes away I re enable VAX it comes back
VA Options -> Advanced -> Display -> Highlight find results
does the yellow go away? I think what you are seeing is by design, VA is highlighting the find results. Since Syntax Highlighting is not applied to the highlighted find results, when only part of a word is highlighted you can see odd colouring effects.
If this is what is happening then just pressing Escape once should dismiss the find results highlighting.