This was one of my more popular posts on the previous iteration of this blog, so I’m going to re-post the code here for interested parties.  If you want to use ARGB hex strings in your XNA application or game here’s some code to do so:

/// <summary>
/// Creates an ARGB hex string representation of the <see cref="Color"/> value.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="color">The <see cref="Color"/> value to parse.</param>
/// <param name="includeHash">Determines whether to include the hash mark (#) character in the string.</param>
/// <returns>A hex string representation of the specified <see cref="Color"/> value.</returns>
public static string ToHex(this Color color, bool includeHash)
{
	string[] argb = {
         	color.A.ToString("X2"),
		color.R.ToString("X2"),
		color.G.ToString("X2"),
		color.B.ToString("X2"),
	};
	return (includeHash ? "#" : string.Empty) + string.Join(string.Empty, argb);
}

/// Creates a <see cref="Color"/> value from an ARGB or RGB hex string.  The string may
/// begin with or without the hash mark (#) character.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="hexString">The ARGB hex string to parse.</param>
/// <returns>
/// A <see cref="Color"/> value as defined by the ARGB or RGB hex string.
/// </returns>
/// <exception cref="InvalidOperationException">Thrown if the string is not a valid ARGB or RGB hex value.</exception>
public static Color ToColor(this string hexString)
{
	if (hexString.StartsWith("#"))
		hexString = hexString.Substring(1);
	uint hex = uint.Parse(hexString, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
	Color color = Color.White;
	if (hexString.Length == 8)
	{
		color.A = (byte)(hex >> 24);
		color.R = (byte)(hex >> 16);
		color.G = (byte)(hex >> 8);
		color.B = (byte)(hex);
	}
	else if (hexString.Length == 6)
	{
		color.R = (byte)(hex >> 16);
		color.G = (byte)(hex >> 8);
		color.B = (byte)(hex);
	}
	else
	{
		throw new InvalidOperationException("Invald hex representation of an ARGB or RGB color value.");
	}
	return color;
}