Work with VS 2010 on a project for VS 2005

Question

I have a project on SourceSafe that the team work with VS 2005.

I have installed VS2010 and like some features of this version.

Is there a way that I keep the project to day with SourceSafe, but however work locally with VS2010.

Say, I could not add new files to solution, but at least obtain, modify and archive the existing ones.

Answer 1

You can update all of the source files pretty safely unless you're adding code that is new since VS 2005. The main difference between the VS versions is in the project, and the solution files. What you can do is make your local project and solution files writable, and then use your source control to modify the source files. When all is said and done though you'll want to build it in 2005 (with the SourceSafe versions of the project and solution files) to make sure it all still works.

Also note that the conversion utility in Visual Studio that converts projects from previous VS versions is only intended to convert projects from the previous version. Since VS 2010's previous version is VS 2008 and not VS 2005 you may have to perform manual changes on your solution and project settings to get everything to build. The main thing that comes to mind is how global include directories are handled. If you have access to VS 2008 convert it to that first, and then to VS 2010.

Answer 2

You should be very careful NOT TO USE new syntax features introduced in VS2010. There are many of them that make coding less tedious, but they are not available in VS2005. For example, property declaration - can be done in VS2010 in one line with no Getter and Setter explicitly declared (not applicable to ReadOnly properties though).

Answer 3

Besides targetting the 2.0 framework VS2010 will still let you use new language features so you have to be careful.

And as Ben Burnett said, the sourcesafe binding doens't have to be a problem as long as you don't check out project and solution files. You can remove the read only flag from them so VS2010 can edit them, but they don't need be be checked into sourcesafe.

But I really wonder which feature you like so much about VS2010 that you want to restrict yourself to not be able to add, remove or rename files from your project.