VS2010 possible to convert projects back to VS2008?

Question

As you all know the VS 2010 RC is out for MSDN subcribers.

Unfortunately I guess I have the same problem as some of you, in that the company I work for wants to continue keeping our projects on VS 2008.

I would like to know if its possible for me to work with VS 21010, then later convert my projects back to VS2008?

I intend to use v3 of the framework for this particular project.

Thanks in advance..

Answer 1

I've just created a little batch file that will convert between VS2008 and VS2010 (and vice versa) at will.

It rewrites the strings found at http://blogs.msdn.com/rextang/archive/2009/07/06/9819189.aspx between both versions in an automated fashion.

Answer 2

It depends on a kind of project you use. It's absolutely impossible to convert VC++ back from 2010 since they have completely different format and no tools to rollback. However, C# and VB.NET still use the same msbuild project format as in VS2008, which will be changed in the next VS version (Dev11) and so all you need to manage C# or VB.NET project version is the ToolsVersion attribute of the Project element.

VS 2008 C# project version:

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

VS 2010 C# project version:

<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

One of the approaches is to use both project systems simultaneously as our team does. Another one is to use targeting for different .NET frameworks in VS2010 projects. V2010 supports all previous .NET frameworks as targets farmeworks till .NET 2.0

Finally, don't be upset by using VS2008 as it's much faster and reliable.