ansaurus

Question

How can I tell what version of Visual Studio was last used to work on a project?

Answer 1

+1 A:

I opened a VisStudio 6.0 dsw file i have, and it reads Format Version 6.00.

I opened a VisStudio 2008 sln file i have, and it reads Format Version 10.00.

So i assume so?

It corresponds. if 6.0 is version 6.0, then Visual Studio .NET (2002) is 7.0, Visual Studio .NET 2003 is 8.0, Visual Studio 2005 is 9.0, and Visual Studio 2008 is 10.00

Caladain 2010-06-24 20:04:57

That does seem logical. However, I have a .vcproj file (for another project with old code in it) that has a version identifier of 7.10, which corresponds to Visual Studio .NET 2003. That said, Wikipedia seems to be aware of this discrepancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio#Version_history): the format version is 8.0 whereas the version itself is 7.1. I wish I could find an official site that said this was definitely true. Thanks for providing a known example. That helps.

Ben Hocking 2010-06-24 20:17:53

Answer 2

A:

Hello Ben!
Check the binary signatures in the compiled files.
By this you can get compiler version.
By compiler version you can get Visual Studio version.

By compiler I mean not only cl.exe, but resource compiler, linker, etc. Do you have some compiled materials?

outmind 2010-06-24 20:12:34

Alas, for this project I don't have the compiled materials, although there's a chance I could get them.

Ben Hocking 2010-06-24 20:19:27

AFAIK .dsw .dsp could be opened by VS later then VS6.<br/>So if they used them only to read/build it could be later version of VS.

outmind 2010-06-24 20:27:17

@outmind - If you open an older VS project in a newer edition of VS, it "upconverts" the project. Not sure if it does it for every version (2003 upconverts 2002, etc), but at least from 6.0 to 2003 and 6.0 to 2008 and 2003 to 2008.

Caladain 2010-06-24 21:19:36

If you want to. Or silently?

outmind 2010-06-25 11:33:40

I remember that it propose you to convert, but can it work on older projects without conversion?

outmind 2010-06-25 11:34:23

I haven't tried it, but I imagine you can compile an older project from the command line using devenv.exe without altering the project files. That said, in most cases it would take deliberate effort to avoid converting to your newer version.

Ben Hocking 2010-06-25 16:33:42

ansaurus

tags:

views:

answers:

How can I tell what version of Visual Studio was last used to work on a project?

related questions