How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

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Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:42:52 GMT

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re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Jason Stangroome — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:57:14 GMT

I thought I'd get away with maintaining both a vs2005 solution file and a vs2008 solution file and sharing projects but I found a few more problems:

Sharing a VS Test project between a PC with only VS2005 and a PC with only VS2008 will mean changing the QualityTools.UnitTestFramework reference regularly. Similarly with sharing Web App and DBPro projects between these machines.

We've decided that for anything more than simple Win Forms + Class Library solutions we will just make sure everyone on the team is using VS2008.

Easily Converting to Visual Studio 2008

John Robbins' Blog — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:55:20 GMT

With VS 2008 being released on Monday , let the project conversions begin! While I wish we could have

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

graye — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:30:54 GMT

I've just completed a utility that will allow you to convert between VS2005 and VS2008 projects. (It just edits the solution and project files... no other conversion is done).

I'd consider it an "advanced beta", but folks are welcome to take a look at the VB2008 source code.

http://home.hot.rr.com/graye/Temp/ProjectConverter.zip

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Rupak Ganguly — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:15:05 GMT

I guess you guys had no choice, but to upgrade an enterprize team of 40 onshore and 100+ offshore members is NOT easy. Not many managers give the members enough time to settle down and upgrade IDEs when they should be writing code. There has to be a solution to the problem of sharing .sln and .proj files between IDEs. Let me know if you have any ideas. The alternatives of manually changing version nos. in sln files are too risky to try.

Thanks,

Rupak Ganguly

Solution Architect, Hewlett Packard

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Terry Tsay — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:23:43 GMT

A lot of us in this organization are still using VS2005 to create and edit solutions and projects. However, that means, given that once we convert we cannot go back without changing solution file, we cannot edit VS2005 solutions and projects in VS2008 and check it back to souce safe.

So it turns out that it is pointless to try to use VS2008 over VS2005 as we do not plan to upgrade to 3.0 or 3.5 any time soon.

I was hoping that since I heard that I can edit .net 2.0 in VS2008, i can just use a newer, fancier and possibly better IDE for .net 2.0 Projects.

I am pretty disappointed when I see the dialog popping up asking me to upgrade solution and warns me that it is not possible to use the solution in VS2005 unless I do some hacks with high risk

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Wayne — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:58:57 GMT

This is great stuff! Thanks for the info!

How to use solutions and projects across VS 2005 and 2008

.Net LIfe — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:02:24 GMT

DJPark has written a great article on transferring and sharing Visual Studio projects between 2005 and

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Rupak Ganguly — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:42:24 GMT

I have to totally agree with Terry. I am in the same boat. By the way, the article above claims:

"Projects created in Visual Studio 2008 can be opened in Visual Studio 2005 "

but when I tried to open a test project created in VS2008 targeting .NET 2.0 in VS 2005, I got the following error:

Unable to read the project file 'ClassLibrary1.csproj'. D:\Projects\ClassLibrary1\'ClassLibrary1.csproj(42,11):The imported project "D:\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

Is this something that only I am seeing or is that another hack that we need to do to get VS2008 projects open in VS2005?

Any answer/help will be greatly appreciated.

PS: By the way, can MS include a Copy button on these error dialogs or enable selecting of text.

Thanks,

Rupak Ganguly

Solution Architect, Hewlett Packard

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Rupak Ganguly — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:31:37 GMT

Ok, now here is what I found further:

1. If the project is created in VS2005, upgraded with VS2008 (it seems the upgrade report shows that no changes have been made to the project) - then this project can be opened in VS2005 back again without any errors as mentioned in my previous post.

2. If the project is created in VS2008 and then opened in VS2005, the error mentioned above is seen.

Thanks,

Rupak Ganguly

Solution Architect, Hewlett Packard

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Rupak Ganguly — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:53:07 GMT

On further investigation:

VS2008 DOES change the project file when upgrading the VS2005 project.

Here are the changes:

1. Old: <Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">">http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

New: <Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="3.5">

This ToolsVersion controls the version for the build tools that are invoked.

2. Old: Not present

New:

</FileUpgradeFlags>

</UpgradeBackupLocation>

Note: I guess left over from the upgrade process. But, notice the OldToolsVersion.

3. Old: <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v8.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />

New: <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" Condition="" />

Note the version no. change.

Thanks,

Rupak Ganguly

Solution Architect, Hewlett Packard

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Christopher Piggott — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:20:09 GMT

Can you please confirm my understanding about something: It seems that it should be possible to have two different .sln files (one for VS2005 and one for VS2008) that share the .csproj files, and use one .sln if opening from VS2005 and the other from VS2008. The only thing is, if you change the .sln in one (e.g. add a new CSPROJ) you would have to add it to the other yourself. But, if the .csproj files are compatible, then for example adding a reference to a .csproj would mean it got seen by the other solution. Correct?

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Bhavin — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:45:44 GMT

Hey this sounds really helpful...let met try these options and see which one works out best... I have a vs2008 solution having 10 projects needed to be converted in vs2005... i have team of 30 people who are waiting for some easier way to migrate...so it would be great if any of these options works....

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Ken — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:47:17 GMT

Rupak,

Control-C will typically copy the text of an alert box to your clipboard, even when you're unable to select the text.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Mark Rodrigues — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:05:05 GMT

Great article. Exactly what I was looking for although not happy with the answer (as I understand it).

Can I paraphrase what I think the situation is:

If I have a team of people working on a solution in VS2005 I can't have a someone working on the same solution in VS2008.

If I do then everyone working on 2005 will need to do a hack whenever someone using 2008 checks in their changes.

It also means that as I add new members to my team I have to buy 2005 licenses unless I want to take the hit and upgrade the whole team to 2008.

Have I got it right?

Thanks again

Mark

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Tulga — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:55:39 GMT

Thank you guys, I had big problem on this.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

leem — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:20:08 GMT

why ms do not provide a compatible mode for vs2005,that the vs2005 and vs2008 can smoke the calumet together.

hope the next hot-fix can resolve this problem.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Alexander Gnauck — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:17:52 GMT

Thanks for this great article.

This problem is very annoying. I hope Microsoft will fox this with an update and not change the format with the next VS version again.

Project type between VS2005 and VS2008

Canadian Developers — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:01:18 GMT

During the Heroes Happen Here events, I received a fair amount of questions regarding the combine use

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ASP.NET 2.0 Guest Book - VS 2008 on Vista

How to use solutions and projects across VS 2005 and 2008

Wayne John — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:33:00 GMT

How to use solutions and projects across VS 2005 and 2008

Notes on upgrading to Visual Studio 2008 from VS2005

Darryl Burling — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:59:46 GMT

Notes on upgrading to Visual Studio 2008 from VS2005

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Konovalov — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:55:39 GMT

I have same same troubles so, afetr below change in csproj file my VS2008 project can be compiled in VS2005

So, here we are

before my change:

after my change:

and it works.

thx

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

http://www.skinui.com — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:32:51 GMT

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This IS Visual Skin Builder Tool

skin preview:

SkinFeature developer library improves the visual appearance of your applications by adding originality and uniqueness.

SkinFeature developer library is a powerful library that changes the visual appearance of windows or dialogs, providing developers with full-featured support for 'application skins', or 'application look and feel'. Skinfeature makes it easy to create programs with visually stunning, fully interactive user interfaces.

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re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

jamespaterson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:45:12 GMT

FYI this does not work for C++ projects - Bah.

"The following error has occurred during XML parsing:

File: C:\Oxscan\Production\MatrixLibrary_Test\MatrixLibrary_Test.vcproj

Line: 10

Column: 2

Error Message:

'9.00' violates enumeration constraint of '7.00 7,00 7.10 7,10 8.00 8,00'.

The attribute 'Version' with value '9.00' failed to parse."

I code in visual C++ which frankly has seen appalling support in visual studio over the last few years. The lack of backwards compatibility is clearly a transparent attempt to get us to spend money on upgrades. Sigh.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

TWS — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:51:36 GMT

FYI on C++ projects:

The schema can be found in

c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcpackages\VCProjectEngine.dll as a resource.

Search for <xs:enumeration value="7.00" /> in plain text (not unicode)

If you want to force opening the new projects, edit the schema with a resource editor.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Ingo Bleile — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:53:52 GMT

Does anyone know whether or not it is necessary to change the references version numbers in the cproj-File after converting a project from 2005 to 2008? Currently, my references looks like that:

and I still get an "This SQL Server Version (10.0) is not supported." error when trying to connect to an SQL Server 2008 database. Is the .cproj-entry "ToolsVersion="3.5"" enough to distinguish .net 2.0 and 3.5 components or is it necessary to do manual corrections?

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

poorani — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:17:27 GMT

Web deployment to the local IIS server is no longer supported. The Web Deployment build tool has been removed from your project settings.

This application has been updated to include settings related to the User Account Control (UAC) feature of Windows Vista. By default, when run on Windows Vista with UAC enabled, this application is marked to run with the same privileges as the process that launched it. This marking also disables the application from running with virtualization. You can change UAC related settings from the Property Pages of the project.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

poorani — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:21:33 GMT

Hi, i got this error while importing vc.net project from vs2005 to vs2008:::

Web deployment to the local IIS server is no longer supported. The Web Deployment build tool has been removed from your project settings.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

aruna — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:06:39 GMT

This is great article. I had a problem to open VS 2008 project in VS 2005, it was showing me "Unable to read the project file 'ClassLibrary1.csproj'. D:\Projects\ClassLibrary1\'ClassLibrary1.csproj(42,11): The imported project "D:\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk."

I changed my project properties file with the following attributes:

1. Change <Project ToolsVersion="3.5" to <Project ToolsVersion="2.0"

2. Change

Now I can open my project with VS2005

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Matthew @ pelsys — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:55:58 GMT

A small tool to allow you to covert your projects...

I added it as a post build event to my vs2008 project

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using System.IO;

using System.Xml;

namespace VS2008ToVS2005

{

class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

if (args.Length == 2)

{

if (File.Exists(args[0]))

{

XmlNamespaceManager nameSpaceManager = null;

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

doc.Load(args[0]);

nameSpaceManager = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);

nameSpaceManager.AddNamespace("msb", @"http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003");

//<Project ToolsVersion="3.5"

XmlElement el = doc.SelectSingleNode(@"//msb:ProductVersion",nameSpaceManager) as XmlElement;

if (el != null && el.InnerText == @"9.0.30729")

{

el.InnerText = @"8.0.50727";

}

el = doc.SelectSingleNode(@"//msb:Project", nameSpaceManager) as XmlElement;

if (el != null && el.Attributes["ToolsVersion"] != null)

{

el.Attributes.Remove(el.Attributes["ToolsVersion"]);

}

el = doc.SelectSingleNode(@"//msb:Import", nameSpaceManager) as XmlElement;

if(el != null && el.Attributes[@"Project"] != null)

{

el.Attributes["Project"].InnerText = @"$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets";

}

if (File.Exists(args[1]))

{

File.Delete(args[1]);

}

doc.Save(args[1]);

return;

}

Console.WriteLine("Usage :");

Console.WriteLine("VS2008ToVS2005 <srcFile> <destFile>");

Console.WriteLine("eg. ");

Console.WriteLine(" VS2008ToVS2005 stuff_2k8.csproj stuff_2k5.csproj ");

}

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Catherine Sea — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:14:19 GMT

Thanks for the info.

Catherine Sea

www.dynamsoft.com

www.scmsoftwareconfigurationmanagement.com

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Scott Evans — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:19:20 GMT

I'm SSSSOOOOOOooooo TIRED of Microsoft compatibility issues. No wonder Gates is one of the richest people in the world. What a piece of SH!!!!T.

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Absher Rashid — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:32:36 GMT

Also dont forget to modify the following in .csproj file:

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Dayananda — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:27:33 GMT

Hi,

I'm getting following warning after converting from Visual studio 2005 to 2008:

Conversion Issues - setup.vcproj:

Web deployment to the local IIS server is no longer supported. The Web Deployment build tool has been removed from your project settings.

Project upgraded successfully.

Please let me know is this breaks anything.

Thanks for your reply.

Daya

re: How to use solutions and projects between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Siddhesh Kumar — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:37:20 GMT

We have a VS 2008 Sharepoint project, including use of workflows. I need to "migrate" this to VS2005, since my customer doesnt have 2008 :(

Can you please provide some urgent pointers on whether this will work, and what I can do to make it work?