Visual Studio 2005: sharing C++ project files between Professional and Team Editions

Question

We are considering switching from VS2005 Professional Edition to the VS2005 Team Edition to be able to benefit from the better tools available in the latter version. Subsequently we would have teams of developers working on the same C++ project and solution files both from the Professional and from the Team Editions. Those files will be checked in and out using a version control tool like Subversion.

Does anyone know if it is safe to share project/solution files between two (or more) VS2005 versions? The Team Edition adds properties to the project files (e.g. profiling options), which the Professional Version is probably not capable of dealing with. Or can we assume that the Professional Edition is smart enough to just ignore those properties and not to mess the project files around?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I believe so. VS and VSTS are the same core product under the bonnet, so they are fundamentally compatible.

As you say, some of the additional features in VSTS save their settings into the project files, but I think that VS simply ignores the stuff it doesn't support.

(I say "think" because I've moved projects back and forth between the two without any issues, but I haven't used projects that utilise all the additions of VSTS, so can't confirm categorically that everything works - e.g. Code analysis settings and unit tests were fine, I just couldn't analyse or test in VS. The absence of TFS source control was reported, with the usual option of working offline or removing the bindings from the project. Most (all?) of the profiler options are held in separate files IIRC so they probably won't be touched by VS. Most of the other main features of VSTS relate to TFS and Team Explorer, which I believe are independent of projects/solutions)

You may be able to get a VSTS licence with a money-back period, so that you can verify that your specific projects are totally portable without any risk?