Multiple Project in 1 solution vs 2008

Question

I have various individual projects in VS 2003 with some common files(Admin) in each of them. Now I want to migrate all these projects into VS 2008. I also want all the projects to be under 1 single solution so that I have 1 common admin section in the main project and each project as subproject

Ex Main Project
   - Admin Section
         -Sub Proj1
         -Sub Proj2
         -SubProj3

Just want to know if this is a feasible thing to do. Right now I have separate web.configs for each project, how is this going to change if I combine the projects in 1 solution? How does project compiling/building works in such situation?

Any advice will be helpful.

Thanks

Answer 1

You said your project was in VS 2003. If you are using .NET 1.1 you will have a problem with VS 2008. I believe 2008 only supports .NET 2.0-3.5.

Answer 2

Visual Studio 2008 does not support subprojects.

If you have a common code (not files), you can share them by creating a project and reference it to any other project that requires the code.

If you have content (not compiled) files, you can add them into the project as resource files and access them programatically.

This does not work for web files (e.g.: .htm, .css, .js, etc.).

Answer 3

Config files "cascade" - your app will query up the chain, from the one closest to it all the way up to machine.config, until it finds one that contains the information it wants. So there should not be an issue with your web-config files; they would each remain with their own project.

As far as feasability, yes, you can have multiple projects - even multiple web projects - in the same solution. However, you cannot nest them as you described. Each project must be a distinct child of the solution.