open-visual-studio-2008-project-file-in-visual-studio-2005

Open Visual Studio 2008 project file in Visual Studio 2005

2010-08-25

We know the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE Higher version can open the project which created in lower version by convert wizard steps. For example, whey you try to open a VS 2005 project in VS 2008, you will see a convert wizard windows firstly, it helps you convert old project to new project which can be opened in VS 2008.

But, Is it possible to open a Visual Studio 2008 project in Visual Studio 2005 ?

The answer is : Yes.

Of course we can not do it in the Visual Studio IDE directly. We need to do some works by manual.

Firstly, we need to know the higher version project doesn’t use higher version of VS studio’s features. Then it is possible to open the higher version of project in lower version of VS studio.

The solution is that we just need to change some information related Visual Studio Version such as version number.

For example:

1: .sln

    Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00
    # Visual Studio 2008
    Project("{F184B08F-C81C-45F6-A57F-5ABD9991F28F}") = "ProjectConverter",
    "ProjectConverter.vbproj", "{B637ACFD-0AFC-4FBB-A8C0-602B5ABA62F0}"
    EndProject
    Project("{54435603-DBB4-11D2-8724-00A0C9A8B90C}") = "Setup", "Setup\Setup.vdproj",
    "{09667F41-0E35-4D40-A0A9-E71BA6740D93}"
    EndProject
    Global

    ….

    EndGlobal

2: .vbproj, .csproj, .vcproj

ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"&gt; 
    Debug 
AnyCPU
9.0.21022    2.0 
{B637ACFD-0AFC-4FBB-A8C0-602B5ABA62F0}    WinExe

    ProjectConverter.My.MyApplication    ProjectConverter    ProjectConverter    512

    WindowsForms    v2.0    On    Binary

    ...

The above examples copied from This Article in Chinese.

Also, there is another More Professional Article and there are much more detail information (Visual Studio 2005/2008 Interoperability).