Running Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 at the same time

Question

A group of us are working on a project which we built with .NET 3.5 in Visual Studio 2008. I want to test out Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 (well, mainly for WPF 4). I am just wondering if I install VS 2010, will I still be able to use VS 2008 to open the first project.

I know when I open older projects made in VS 2003/2005, I get an upgrade wizard. I do not want to upgrade the first project to 2010, since that would probably mean every one else has to use it too.

I have not done this before, is it possible to run both versions of Visual Studio, where each version opens its own projects (this may not even be an issue, but I just wanted someone to confirm this, so that I don't spend a lot of time trying to undo changes)?

Answer 1

Yes, this is fine.

If you open the project in VS 2010, it will convert that specific project. However, if you never open the project, you can continue to use it in VS 2008.

I currently have both versions installed on my machine, and use 2008 for our released, maintenance projects, and 2010 for our new development projects.

Answer 2

Standard procedure for installing multiple instances of Visual Studio is to install the newest one first, followed by the next-latest, etc.

That's worked for every Microsoft IDE dating back to VB5 and Access 2.0. I can't imagine they've changed it recently.

And naturally, if you don't want to upgrade the project in question, simply make a copy to play around and remember not to check it back in to source control.

Answer 3

Early last year I had both 2005 and 2008 projects I was working on. I had no problems, just make sure you keep a backup of any projects you convert to 2010!