I have a Solution file (.Sln) in Visual Studio for my Application. Application development started back in .NET 3.0. Later it was decided to provide application in .NET 3.0 and .NET 4.0.
Since there wasn't an option (I was not present at that time) so two solution files were created.
App_NET30.Sln
App_NET40.Sln
Later came a requirement to support .NET 4.5 as well. So one more file was created
App_NET45.Sln
Respective Solution files are opened using Visual Studio version
App_NET30.Sln - Opened in VS 2008
App_NET40.Sln - Opened in VS 2010
App_NET45.Sln - Opened in VS 2010
Now, somehow, this does not seem a good way to me. There has to be a neat and clean way of doing this. Like doing it all in a single solution file
I tried to create a single solution and defined various build configurations in the file and changed Target Framework in each build configuration. But it did not persist.
What can be a way to have a single solution file and achieve all that I desire ?
Related
In short: I need to open an application originally built in Visual Studio 2008 (version 9) in Visual Studio 2013 without upgrading the project since the overall project architecture must remain the same for when I check it back into source control.
Details: I need to open a Visual Studio solution (.sln) inside Visual Studio 2013. The solution in question was originally developed in Visual Studio 2008, so when I try to open said solution in Visual Studio 2013, I am shown a prompt with the projects within the solution checkmarked, with the message:
These projects are either or supported or need project behavior impacting modifications to open in this version of Visual Studio. Projects no displayed either require no changes or will automatically be modified such that behavior is not impacted. Visual Studio will automatically make functional changes to the following projects in order to open them. You will not be able to open these projects in the version of Visual Studio in which they were originally created.*
My attempt at a fix was to just upgrade the solution and hope for the best. This is successful, but after building and attempting to run the main project, I see the following build error:
The type 'Microsoft.Web.Services3.WebServicesClientProtocol' is defined in an assembly that is not referenced. You must add a reference to assembly 'Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'. *
I then tried both commenting out the references to this assembly and adding in the missing reference. Okay, so then I rebuilt the solution and attempted to run. Same error, but for a different assembly. Repeat fix, same error for different assembly. This pattern continues and continues, and at this point I realize this is unacceptable anyway, because when I make a change to this solution, I need to check it back into source control. When others open it, they may be opening it in VS2008, and therefore this “upgraded” version is inconsistent with the version the business uses. I need to open the solution originally build in VS2008 in VS 2013 (can't work around this, needs to be VS2013). If it helps, I'm using 64 bit Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate.
Any help or guidance will be greatly appreciated!
As several of the commenters have already helpfully pointed out, this is not possible. Round-tripping (i.e., opening and manipulating project files created by an older version of Visual Studio in a newer version of Visual Studio) was not supported until Visual Studio 11. The only way to open a Visual Studio 2008 project/solution in a later version of Visual Studio will be to convert it.
As far as interoperability with previous versions is concerned, you have two options:
Update the project locally (using the migration wizard provided), make any changes to the project file necessary to get it to build, and then edit the code files. Once you're satisfied with your edits, commit only the modified source files, not the project infrastructure files. Your fellow developers, stuck on VS 2008, won't notice any difference.
Update the project locally (using the migration wizard provided), make any changes to the project file necessary to get it to build, and then rename the project file (e.g., by appending a -vs2013 suffix to it). Commit this to your code repository. You will now have two project files in your root directory, one for each version of Visual Studio that your team works with. From here on, you just open the project file corresponding to the version of VS that you have installed.
I used approach #1 for a good part of last year, where I spent most of my time developing a C++ application in VS 2010 on a desktop machine, but also wanted to work on it on my notebook running VS 2013. Of course, in my case, it took a trivial amount of time for the automatic conversion to upgrade my project file after pulling from source control. I didn't have to do any tweaking thereafter to get the project to build. It sounds like your case is different, so option #2 might be a better choice.
I am running Visual Studio 2015 (Update 1, .NET Framework 4.6.1) and all designer files stopped auto-updating in my project. In the past I used to have this happen with one file and I would simply recreate the designer for that one file, but I never had it happen on the project file like this.
Some solutions say to go to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319 and then your projects folder and clear all temp files, but none of my project's folders are in here.
Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise 2015
Version 13.0.24720.00 Update 1
All of the latest .NET Frameworks installed (4.5, 4.6, 4.6.1)
Everything is fully up to date
The only fix that I found was to take a backup of my project and re-create it as a new project.
In my case I just took a backup of my local non-working project got latest from source control which created a new project.
It definitely has to do with visual studio files being out of sync which causes locking of the designer files.
I have a C#.Net Application, After building my C#.NET Output it is then encrypted using the 3rd-party .NET Reactor utility. While building Setup Development Project that Includes the encrypted file, VS2010 Says :
"Unable to update the dependencies".
I've added dependencies manually and no thing changed, How can I ignore dependencies requirement for that file?
I know this is an old post, but since I struggled with this for several hours in June 2017, I decided to post my solution in case it can help someone in the future. I'm using VS Community 2017 with .Net Reactor 5.0 to encrypt the exe output of a Windows Forms application, and I kept getting the following message on my Setup project (using VS Setup project... not Installshield):
"ERROR: Unable to update the dependencies of the project. The dependencies for the object 'MyProgramNameHere.exe' cannot be determined."
After trying every setting in .Net Reactor, I determined that the culprit was the Anti ILDASM checkbox on the main tab (Files). Other features work fine, but the Anti ILDASM will not work with VS 2017 + VS Setup Project, so make sure that it is unchecked.
I had the same problem with .Net Reactor 4.9.0.0 and a Visual Studio Setup Project in VS2010. When I moved back to .Net Reactor 4.4.7.0 the Setup project (.vdproj) detected it's dependencies and worked.
I did not look further as I don't know what 4.9.0.0 offers me over 4.4.7.0 beyond several lost hours of research and hunting.
I remember seeing an open source project within the last year that I was able to open in both VS 2008 and VS 2010 without an upgrade wizard popping up. I think...
Is it possible to create a project/solution that will open up in any version of Visual Studio without prompting me to run the upgrade wizard? If so, how do I do this?
Information for both C++ and C# projects would be most helpful.
You can, use CMake and generate VSx solution.
I think the project that you have seen had 2 visual studio solutions for different visual studio versions.
Update:
Also, you can use http://sourceforge.net/projects/vspc/
or see http://www.emmet-gray.com/Articles/ProjectConverter.htm
The solution format hasn't changed significantly over the visual studio versions except the version number.
If the code itself is generic enough (not using linq, etc) then you can edit the first line of the solution file to "downgrade" the version.
VS2005 uses:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 9.00
# Visual Studio 2005
You can give the Prebuild project a try to generate needed solution files on the fly.
Prebuild is a cross-platform XML-driven pre-build tool which allows
developers to easily generate project files for major IDE's and .NET
development tools including: Visual Studio .NET 2002, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010
SharpDevelop, MonoDevelop, NAnt and Autotools.
May be it is not what you ask about, but you can convert you project into nmake target
The only way to do this is to create separate solutions (for 2010 and 2008), and include existing projects to different solutions. Create new projects in VS2008, and then add them to VS2010 solution.
You may need something like round-tripping
Round-tripping is the ability to use a current or previous version of Visual Studio to target a platform that is supported by both versions of VS. For example, with round-tripping, you can open projects from a previous version of VS in a newer IDE without the need for conversion, thus allowing you to work side-by-side on old and upgraded projects.
Read more
I'm trying to find a way of being able to use multiple versions of Visual Studio on the same set of projects. The majority of our team uses 2008, but I am trying out 2010. All projects are C#.
As I understand it Visual Studio 2010 insists on upgrading all projects, so it's not possible to leave all the solution/project files as 2008 versions. I really don't want to branch the entire source tree, so I'd like to find a way for multiple versions of the project files coexisting. Currently, I've duplicated all .sln and .csproj files so I have:
# 2008 versions
SolutionName.sln
ProjectA.csproj
ProjectB.csproj
# 2010 versions
SolutionName.vs2010.sln
ProjectA.vs2010.csproj
ProjectB.vs2010.csproj
The trouble is, despite the 2010 versioned files all having the same assembly names as their 2008 counterparts, Visual Studio (2010) believes the projects are all ProjectName.vs2010. Renaming the project in VS fails with a message saying a file of the same name already exists.
I don't think putting the 2010 version in a sub-folder would be a solution as it would screw up any relative paths in the files.
So:
Is there any way to convince VS that the project name should not be suffixed with .vs2010 (i.e. not the same name as the file)? Or
Am I approaching this the wrong way? Is there a better way of working with multiple versions of VS on the same projects?
UPDATE
My initial claim was wrong that Visual Studio was failing to find the project references because it was using the file name. The specific problem I was having was that in my build files the project references were of the form:
<ProjectReference Include="..\..\path\to\ProjectName.vs2010.csproj">
<Project>{48354450-2462-449D-8B32-EFECA39F6CD7}</Project>
<Name>ProjectName</Name>
</ProjectReference>
The project files that I copied apparently have a different ID (or whatever it is in the <Project> element. Simply removing the element from the build file has solved that particular issue:
<ProjectReference Include="..\..\path\to\ProjectName.vs2010.csproj">
<Name>ProjectName</Name>
</ProjectReference>
Having said that, the whole process of duplicating the project and solution files has actually been more effort than it's worth, so I'm not recommending this approach.
Do you often modify the projects?
You could simply work with your upgraded version of the csproj and sln files.
This way you would commit/check-in all changes to source code files except for the project files, which are not often modified anyway (except to add new files).
Then if you want to commit the changes in the project files, you'd work with an intermediate local VS2008 version of the file and line it up using your favorite diff/merge tools before eventually committing this VS2008 version. It would be some kind of local branch.
Unless you absolutely have to work with different versions of Visual Studio, those of the team still using 2008 could upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 Express. It's free for commercial use, and lacks only a few advanced features you might not need.
Have you tried opening the SolutionName.vs2010.sln in a simple text edior and changing the diplay name of the projects?
(form: Project("{$GUID}") = "$DISPLAYNAME", "PROJECTFILE", "{$OTHERGUID}"
Answering the second part of your question:
Why is it important to cover up that there are multiple versions of the project files? The reality is that there are two versions and you have to be careful to maintain both of them concerning the state of your project anyway (files are addded / renamed/ deleted; configuration options are changed).
Having two sets of projects and solution files will lead to differences between them which will break things.
Generally: Don't mix Visual Studio releases in the same project. Keeping the toolchain identical between developers will save you much trouble.
visual studio 2010 and 2008 project files (.csproj) are compatible side by side if you have both editors installed, meaning you can upgrade it, work on it in 2010, and have someone else work on it in 2008 without any issues. the only caveat is that you have to leave the target framework as .net 2.0 or 3.5 and that those who work in 2008 have to also have 2010 installed.
the only problem comes if they try to then open the project file in 2008 and they don't have 2010 installed (because I think 2010 adds some new build target that a standard 2008 won't know about). I didn't think this was a problem but I just ran into it this past week (on a web project), so it does exist in some form for some projects.
if you do go the rename route, the best way to go about that is to open the sln file in notepad, and rename the csproj references to the new names by hand (adding any new renamed folder paths), then renaming any folders outside visual studio, then renaming the file name in windows explorer, then rename the csproj in windows explorer, then open the solution in visual studio. your scm bindings may be hosed at that point though...