VS 2010 Error: ...csproj Cannot Be Opened

Question

I'm trying to launch a project created by someone else in my local environment. I'm currently using the following products:

• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate version 10.0.40219.1 SP1 Rel
• MVC 2
• Windows 7 Ultimate

But when I double click on the .sln file I get the following error:

C:\Users...\Desktop\ContactManager\ContactManager\ContactManager.csproj : error : The project file 'C:\Users...\Desktop\ContactManager\ContactManager\ContactManager.csproj' cannot be opened.

The project type is not supported by this installation.

Please help me load my project. :)

Thank you,

Aaron

Answer 1

Turns out that I just needed to install MVC version 3. I guess the project that I was trying to open is using MVC3 and my machine only had 2 as you can see in my environment list above. I'm glad I was able to fix this BUT give me a better error message for crying out loud. Sheesh. ;)

Aaron

Answer 2

I've come across this before. In my case, I had installed Microsoft SQL Server and, more importantly, BIDS. Whenever I would open a project that was created in VS2008, the VS version selector would identify this as a 2008 project and BIDS would try to open it (and this error would occur). What I did as a work-around is I would right-click on the .sln file and use the "Open With" to select VS2010. If that also works for you, you can change your defaults for what opens .sln files.

Another way to test this is to open VS2010 and then use the "Open Solution" menu option to open your solution. If this method works, you know the issue is the default program that is opening your .sln files.