Visual Studio 2010 managed c++ targets .NET 2.0 PROBLEM

Question

For someone who's been down this road, please share your breadcrumbs.

I have old VS2005 solution. Most of the parts are c# but I have one c++ managed project. Dev machine: Windows XP. Target framework version: 2.0

I moved the project to the Windows 7 64 BIT, VS 2010, did the project conversion. First thing I noticed were build errors - projects depending on one what is in c++ complained that project referenced has target 4.0 and I want to use it in project that (properly) targets 2.0.

OK, so I used some tips and set my project target to .NET 2.0. NOW: VS2010 complains that it cannot load the project because I need to install framework 2.0. OK, so I try to install it, and nothing - since installer detects .NET 2.0 as a part of the operating system.

WTF?

Admins, please create WTF tag for me here :)

Answer 1

It is not the .NET version that's the problem. The C++ build system currently does not directly support building for pre-.NET 4.0 targets. It requires VS2008 to be installed so it can use its tool chain. Sounds like you don't have it.

This blog post explains the workaround. You can upvote this feedback article if you're unhappy with that. No idea if this is slated to be fixed in SP1, this is not drawing a lot of votes.