Running Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010 on same system

Question

I have around 50 projects in Visual Studio 2005 that I am building a new development machine for and I'd like to slowly move those projects to VS 2008 but also have 2010 available for select new projects.

Can this work? Are there any gotchas for this sort of setup? Any general advice for running multiple versions of Visual Studio on the same system would be greatly appreciated. Specifically related to managing a controlled migration of projects to new versions but being able to selectively keep some on old versions.

Answer 1

I've got 7.1, 8, and 9 installed at the same time (well, and VB part of 6 as well) and I've not really had a problem opening projects file in the wrong version. The Visual Studio Solution files is "associated" with a particular version even if they all have the same extension of .sln, as you can see from its little icon. Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector seems to handle individual project files (.vcproj) fine as well.

The only thing I've had is the individual source code files not opening up in the latest version like I want, but that's easily fixed with the click of a little button in VS Opions.

Microsoft have this to say:

Visual Studio supports the installation of Visual Studio .NET 2002, 2003, ... on the same computer.

In general, you should install the earliest release of Visual Studio first, and then install subsequent versions of Visual Studio in the order in which they were released.

Answer 2

Make sure when you open up the 2005 files you're doing it in 2005. To open them in another would require a conversion which would render them incompatible with the older compiler set-up. To aid this, structure whatever workspace you're using into 2005, 2008, and 2010 so as to minimize accidental chance of this.

Second, when you double click to open the projects, it will invariably attempt to open them with 2010. You'll have to start with VS#### instead of the solution/project unless you're in the 2010 workspace.

Answer 3

I have VC6, VB6, VS 2008, and VS2010 RC installed on Windows Vista. I cannot double click on the VC6 dsp files without VS2010 opening and asking to perform the conversion. The 2008 C# projects open in 2008 as long as I use the solution file. The 2008 project file opens in 2010 instead of 2008 even though the version selector is the default program. Most of the time I try to remember to open the desired version of Visual Studio and then open the project.

You can mitigate some of these issues by changing the default program associations in the control panel or the registry.

Update: This setup works on Windows 7 x64, with the addition of VS2013.

Answer 4

Yes it can work. I'm not sure if you have to install them in a particular order... but install them in order of the versions... 2005, 2008, 2010. Should be good to go.

Answer 5

I can't speak for 2010, but I have run 2005 and 2008 at the same time on my system without any fuss.

And I made the double-click mistake that wheaties warns about more than once :(

Answer 6

I have VS2005 & VS2008 running without any issues. I have had problems when working with betas, express editions & am assuming you don't have them.

I would say refrain from making too many changes to the setup of these editions, it should be fine.

Answer 7

I also had the same doubt. I work at my company which is still on VS 2008 and I want to personally use the VS 2010 and not risk the 2008. I installed the 2010 and it worked fine with the 2008. Just make sure you note the projects that are in 2005 and open them with the same accordingly.

Answer 8

The reason why it works is simple: if you open your solution file in Notepad, you'll see which version of VS is related to your project.