VS.Net 2003

Why oh why couldn’t the new VS.Net solution file format have either been compatible with VS.Net 2002 or have a different file extension…

I’m in the process up updating my socket server code to build with VS.Net 2003. The code already builds with both VC6 and VS.Net 2002. Since the project files for VC6 and VS.Net have different file extensions they quite happily co-exist in the same directory. Unfortunately, for whatever reason Microsoft chose to make the VS.Net 2003 files incompatible with the VS.Net 2002 files yet left with the same extension.

When you decide to let VS upgrade the project files for you it leaves a copy of the old files with a .old extension tacked on. If it simply renamed the files to MyProject.2002.vcproj and then fixed up the links in the sln file all would be well and you’d be left with a working 2002 project and a new 2003 project!

Now I need to decide if I really want the crap from three build environments littering my source directories… The problem is that if I move the project files off into their own directory structure the whole thing starts to get less and less standard and more people will get confused and email me with questions…

It must be time for breakfast.