Visual Studio 2008 coding for Visual 2010 add-in

Question

Hey guys, I been wondering if VSX is backwards compatible in coding, as there had been very limited and vague resources for the VS2010 add-in API.

I need to create an add-in for a project, but since I've never coded in VSX before, I was wondering if anyone knew.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The short answer is "yes, but...".

If you're working with strictly the VSIP interfaces or managed package framework (i.e. Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.*), then yes. Your VSPackage built for 2008 should work in 2010 (with the appropriate registration).

There were some breaking changes around the editor interfaces (since the whole editor subsystem was completely re-written for 2010). However, a shim layer covers about the top 80% of the old API surface, so most extensions written against the 2008 editor interfaces should work the same in 2010.