opening visual studio 2010 solution files in visual studio 2008 - visual-studio

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

Related

Visual Studio 2013 Round-Tripping

I want to migrate a Visual Studio 2010 Solution so that I can work with Visual Studio 2013.
If I understand it right, due to the round-tripping feature of Visual Studio 2013,
there is no reason to convert the solution!? I can just open my old solution with
Visual Studio 2013 and can just work with it.
Is that right? Or is there a good reason or need to do a conversion to a
Visual Studio 2013 solution.
Or better: Is there any good reason to not stick with the old Visual Studio 2010 solution?
Visual Studio 2013 can open a sln file created by Visual Studio 2010. However, Visual Studio 2010 can not open a sln file created by Visual Studio 2013.
The easiest way to see this is to open the sln file in a text editor and look at the first 2 lines:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio 2012
Visual Studio has a version setting in the header (this example is from VS 2012). An older version of the tool wont open the file.
Beyond that there aren't really any big differences in the file. There are certain project types (ie Project("{guid}") that aren't supported in older version of Visual Studio. For example a Visual Studio 2013 SDK project can only be opened with Visual Studio 2013.
To wrap up, if you have an existing Visual Studio 2010 sln file, there isn't really any need to change it. If you plan on opening it again in VS2010 then make sure you don't change it. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about it and just let VS do whatever makes VS happy.

how to open vs2012 project solution to vs2010?

I have develop project in visual studio 2012 , but now im trying to open that project in visual studio 2010?its showing error like cant open the solution
In your .sln file, open with notepad and...
Change the:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
To:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00

Are Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2012 solutions"compatible"?

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.

How can Visual Studio determine a solution file's version?

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

Open Visual Studio 2008 Project in Visual Studio 2005

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.

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