.NET Compact Framework with Visual Studio 2010?

Question

NET Compact Framework with Visual Studio 2010? I have Visual Studio 2003, but i want change to one IDE.

Answer 1

Joel Fjordén has a blog post on how to Open and Build .NET Compact Framework Projects in Visual Studio 2010. In short, his approach involves editing the project file and copying the .NET Compact Framework v3.5 targets files to the .NET v4 directory.

As alluded to earlier, Microsoft web pages note the following:

Because Visual Studio 2010 does not support mobile application development for Windows Phone prior to Windows Phone OS 7.0, you cannot use the following features: .NET Compact Framework projects, Visual C++ device projects, smart device CAB projects, Device Emulator and Device Emulator Manager, testing tools for device projects, and Device Security Manager.

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.NET Compact Framework application development is not supported in Visual Studio 2010.

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.NET Compact Framework application development is supported in Visual Studio 2008, but not in Visual Studio 2010.

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Unfortunately, none of these Microsoft pages appear to make any reference to an out-of-band release for Visual Studio 2010. Is there a Microsoft blog or web page to monitor for an announcement on the availability of this out-of-band release?

Answer 2

To be absolutely clear, Visual Studio 2010 did not ship with Smart Device Programmability support. The primary reason for this is that the Windows Phone stuff was not fully ready, and Microsoft wasn't going hold the release of Studio waiting for that small piece.

Smart Device support for Visual Studio 2010 will be shipped out-of-band, probably in the coming months (they're already shipping CTPs of the bits, and since the Phone is due out later this year, they have to get tools into the hands of developers).

Now what will that "support" entail? Microsoft hasn't officially announced the full details, but it's probably a good bet that you'll see:

• Compact Framework 3.5 (not 2.0 or 1.1) support for CE and WinMo 6.5
• Silverlight support for WinPhone
• XNA support for WinPhone

If you can't wait for that release, then your only real option is to use Studio 2005 or Studio 2008, but keep in mind that those will not work for WinPhone, and you'd be moving to al already out-of-date tool set. I'd seriously consider waiting.

Now as a stopgap, you might be able to use the Evaluation version of Studio 2008 in hopes that the 2010 bits will be shipped before the time limit of the eval expires. The challenge there is that since 2010 is now released, finding the 2008 eval might be difficult.

Answer 3

You can go here and vote to have Microsoft add Compact Framework Support for Visual Studio 2010.

I really makes sense for them to do this as there is no "replacement" Windows CE/Pocket PC yet (or probably ever).

UPDATE: MS has more or less abandoned existing feature requests in Connect. Please go to the new User Voice site to vote for this feature.