The selected file is a solution file MS Visual Studio

The selected file is a solution file MS Visual Studio

Hi Scott,

It is true that you cannot open a project file that has been developed with Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 in a 2005 version. The reason is, these solution files are not backward compatible. The same happens when you try opening a 2010 solution file in a 2008 version. There are two possible solutions to overcome this issue.

1. Create a new Visual Studio 2005 project and add the files manually. This will work but this may be a little time consuming. In this method, you need to ensure that this project does not have any specific code written, for the features of the higher version. In general codes won't have any such specifications. But it is good to ensure this.

2. You need to open the .sln and .csproj files, in a text editor, compare the VS2010 versions to VS2008 versions, and modify the version numbers to match. In the .sln file the first line will be like

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00  —> Decrement this value by 1, per what you see in your project

# Visual Studio 2008

In the Project file you may see a section like

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)MicrosoftVisualStudiov10.0WebApplication

Change this to

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)MicrosoftVisualStudiov9.0WebApplication. Remember that you need to make it as v8.0 if you see 9.0 in your project.