Can I use Visual Studio 2010 without breaking my 2008 apps?

Question

Now Visual Studio 2010 is out can I use Visual Studio 2010 without breaking my 2008 apps? Can I still compile to .Net 2.0 etc?

Thanks Steven

Answer 1

Yes, you can still target framework 2.0 in VS2010. And you can also run VS2008 alongside VS2010.

Answer 2

Basically, yes, but there are a few things that get changed, for instance:

• Testing projects always get converted to .NET 4.0
• Project files get stored in "VS 2010" format.

So downgrading back to VS 2008 is not directly possible (in 99% of all cases it's still not a problem by hand-editing the files, takes just a few seconds).

However, usually, this is not an issue though. Your deployment capabilities are not limited by that. You can still target any framework.

Additionally, I found that running VS 2008 alongside 2010 made no problems at all. Including 2008 projects in a 2010 solution works fine and does not change the project file. It's very easy to slowly transmit to the new version step-by-step.