SolutionConverter

SolutionConverter will convert a complete Visual Studio solution from one version to another; it allows you to convert your solutions to both older and newer versions. Currently, Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010 are supported, including Visual C# Express and Visual Basic Express editions. Visual C++ project conversion is not yet supported.

Background

I recently upgraded to Visual Studio 2010 and encountered the dreaded problem of opening my solutions in older Visual Studio versions. I go to college where they have yet to install the new version, so I simply can't open my work on the college machines. After doing some research, I found this very nice article, but unfortunately, the application didn't support Visual Studio 2010 solutions when I started working on this project. Another thing I noticed that was missing is that it only changed the solution file and did not touch the project files, which also have to be edited for a smooth conversion.

So I decided to write my own tool with a view into the future, with simpler code which should allow easier extension in the future.

Looking through Google some more, this page popped up, explaining what exactly needed to be changed in the solution and project files to make the conversion work without any issues. I recommend going over it before continuing with the article to easily understand why the code is written the way it is.

Using the Code

This code will demonstrate the following:

Loading and analyzing a solution file. Detecting the version of Visual Studio it was intended for, and extracting the list of projects the solution contains.
Loading and analyzing the project files.
Converting the Solution file into the target version.
Working with the XML file, and converting the project files into the target version.

Read more: Codeproject

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