I edited my project (which was written in school using Visual Studio 2008) at home using Visual Studio 2010 Express. When I got back to school, I couldn't open my solution anymore as Visual Studio 2008 told me that the file was created with a newer version of Visual Studio. I asked my professor for help and he edited something in the assembly information of the solution and voila, I could open, run, edit it again as nothing ever happened.
However, I forgot what he did with the assembly information. Does anyone here know what he could have done? or is this approach not advisable?
At the top of the .sln file there would be a line:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00
If you change the version to 10.00, it would correspond to Visual Studio 2008. Use any text editor for this.
The file format has not changed in between these versions (nor has it for Visual Studio 2012).
Edit the .sln file in Notepad and find the version number (11.0) on the first or second line. Change it to 10.0, save the file, and you should be good to go.
Related
Ever since I installed Visual Studio 2017, it now wants to be the one to open all of my projects. Before installing 2017, if I double clicked a VS 2010 .csproj or .sln in Explorer (Windows 10), it would open in VS 2010. But now opening a project for all previous versions opens in 2017. Even if I right-click and choose Open With > Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector it always chooses 2017. To open it in the correct version of Visual Studio, I have to first open VS and then browse to the project to open. This is a pain when I don't remember which version the project should open with and just want to click it and open it. Can I reset it to open a project in the version of visual studio it belongs with?
I confirmed how this is meant to work with the team. The only requirement is that you set Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector as the Default App for .SLN files in Windows. That app launches the version of Visual Studio specified in the solution file. If you crack open a .sln file in an editor, you'll see a section that specifies the version of VS that should be used. It'll look something like this:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio 15
VisualStudioVersion = 15.0.25909.2
One thing to keep in mind though is that value will change whenever a different version of Visual Studio writes to the solution file. E.g., if you create a solution in VS 2010, close VS 2010, launch VS 2017, open the same solution, add a project to it (this is what forces VS to make a change to the .sln file), the version in the solution file will then change to VS 2017. I.e., the last version of VS to write to the solution file, will be set as the version to be used when opening it.
If you're finding it's not working as described, we likely have a bug here. Let me know if that's what you think is happening.
I used Visual Studio 2010 to develop a web application. I formatted my machine and installed Visual Studio 2010 Professional. When I try to open old projects, I get an error saying:
The selected file is a solution file, but was created by a newer version of this application and cannot be opened.
I do not remember the version of visual studio 2010 I used the first time.
Can anyone tell me which version came after the professional edition?
Make sure VS2010 is updated to the latest service pack, otherwise check to see if the project was actually made in VS2012/13 in which case you will need to create a new VS2010 solution and rebuild it from your existing projects.
Open the .sln file in a text editor. In the beginning there is a marker which tells the VS version it is meant for. For VS 2010 it should look like that:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00
# Visual Studio 2010
You should be able to change these values without any problems. As far as I know the file format did not change.
EDIT
Considering the comment of Dumisani: of course you need to target .net 4.0 and make sure no features of .net 4.5 are used!
Chances are you had a service pack installed that you are missing with a clean installation.
Think that I have two solutions: vs2009.sln and vs2010.sln. Both of solution files have the same extension (.sln) but they have different icons. And they are opened in the related version of visual studio. I wonder how does visual studio determine this?
Edit:
Visual studio version selecter is ok but i wonder how can the icon be different even the extensions are same? I used to know that every extension has only one icon in registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\explorer\Shell Icons
2.Edit: I found the answer finally. If anyone wonders about that, the answer is here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144122%28VS.85%29.aspx
Open your .sln file with Notepad or another text editor. Look for Format Version on the first line which correlates with a Visual Studio version. Here's some that I'm familiar with:
Format Version 8.00 is Visual Studio 2003
Format Version 9.00 is Visual Studio 2005
Format Version 10.00 is Visual Studio 2008
Format Version 11.00 is Visual Studio 2010
Format Version 12.00 is Visual Studio 2013
Solution files are text files.
The very first line contains version information.
For example, for a Visual Studio 2010 solution you will find:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00
Additionally, when you have several different versions of Visual Studio installed, the .sln file goes through the Visual Studio Version Selector utility that reads this and opens the corresponding version of Visual Studio. Check the .sln file associations.
Try opening the .sln in a notepad
the first line itself says Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00 or 11 or whatever version it is
How would you open a Visual Studio 2010 .sln file in Visual Studio 2008?
Is it possible? Are there any workarounds?
Have a look at these questions for information about how to convert the solution file between VS2008 and VS2010:
VS2010 possible to convert projects back to VS2008?
VS2010 and VS2008 project compatibility
But keep in mind, that once you have used some of the .NET 4 features (while in VS 2010), you will not be able to continue working with that solution in VS2008, since it does not support .NET 4. On the other hand, when using VS2010, you can still target .NET 3.5 or 2.0.
I think I need more information... but I will try it.
One option is to create a new project in VS 2008 and simply add the files to the project.
Other option is to edit the .sln file and replace* Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00.* with Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00.
The open the .csproj file and replace
with
Open the solution file (.sln) with notepad and change
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00
Visual Studio 2010
to
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00
Visual Studio 2008
Then open the solution file from visual studio 2008
I have created a project using Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 2.0.
Now I want to open it in Visual Studio 2005 (.NET Framework 2.0).
When I try to open the solution in Visual Studio 2005 it is showing an error as "It is created using the Higher versions".
So is there any way I could open the project in Visual Studio 2005?
Or should I redo the entire project in Visual Studio 2005?
Please help me out!
Thanks in advance!
You can edit the solution file and project files (not recommended, but you can). If it's a csproj file, change the line
<ProductVersion>9.0.30729</ProductVersion>
to
<ProductVersion>8.0.50727</ProductVersion>
If it's the sln file, change:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00
to
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 9.00
Try opening the project file instead of the solution file. Otherwise just create a new VS2005 project and add all the files and folders from the VS2008 project.
You can use Visual Studio Project Converter, a handy tool to convert between most versions of Visual Studio (VS 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008).
But unfortunately, converting .NET projects is not supported.
I have just encountered the same problem.
Modifying the .sln file and .csproj file by notepad is the solution.
If want to know more about the file format, we can create a simple project both in VS2005 and VS2008, then compare the project files.