How Do I Downgrade a C++ Visual Studio 2008 Project to 2005

Question

How can I downgrade a C++ Visual Studio 2008 project to visual studio 2005?

Maybe there is a converter program that someone knows of or otherwise a process that I can undertake. Thanks.

Answer 1

I have no idea how well it works, but here's an open source converter tool:

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/vspc

that was an extension to the tool outlined in this article:

• http://www.codeproject.com/KB/macros/vsconvert.aspx

Answer 2

I always hate to edit the .sln/proj files by hand, since they can be so picky and problematic. It might be easiest to just create a new project in 2005, and just copy all the code files back into it.

Answer 3

You will need change the sln and vcproj files (including attributes like ToolsVersion, TargetFramework, ProductVersion etc). Some freeware may be available but I haven't heard very highly of them.

Answer 4

Is your solution file in revision control system? Just see what modifications the upgrading to VS 2008 did to project and solution files and then undo them. There's not a lot of them.

Answer 5

Here is the open source that convert VS2008 project into VS2005.

http://www.emmet-gray.com/Articles/ProjectConverter.htm

Answer 6

You can use sed to do it, with the following script or something like it:

s#Version=\"9.00\"#Version=\"8.00\"#g
s#<ProductVersion>9.0.21022</ProductVersion>#<ProductVersion>8.0.50727</ProductVersion>#g
s#<TargetFrameworkVersion>v2.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>##g
s# ToolsVersion=\"3.5\"##g
s#MSBuildToolsPath#MSBuildBinPath#g

Put that in a text file called "downgrade_vc9_to_vc8.sed", then call it with:

"C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\sed.exe" -f "downgrade_sln_vc9_to_vc8.sed" "MyProject.vcproj" > "MyProject_VC8.vcproj"

Answer 7

You can delete .sln file, then open .vcproj in VS2005, then save it as new solution. Since all project options are held in .vcproj file, that should do.