When I try to open my .sln file, Visual Studio quits on me. I can open it by opening up TFS, getting a specific version, choosing the latest version, forcing an overrwrite, opening up the .sln file, and then ignoring an 'incompatible doc message".
However, I would like to know what's wrong and how it can be fixed, in case some day I can't do this.
How can this be fixed?
Get copies of both versions of the file and use your favorite dif tool to see what's changed. sln files are xml (i.e. human readable), so it isn't too hard to figure out what happened.
Difficult to tell. A sln file is quite simple structured, if you open it with a text editor, check is everything looks all right to you.
Seems to me that the sln file could be in a conflicted state.
I would think this is more likely to be the .suo (which is a hidden file). These are know to corrupt (and this has been true since at least VC++ V6). Deleting it will clear all sorts of odd/erroneous behaviour in VS.
(The .suo holds local settings: which files are open and layout, breakpoints, bookmarks, ... only: nothing that really matters to the solution or projects.)
Have you tried creating a new sln and importing all the projs? if it doesn't solve the corruption, it may point to a project with a problem.