Compiling an Add-In for VS 2005 and 2008   

I remember, when Visual Studio 2003 was released, my Add-In would run under 
both VS 2002 and 2003, but only if it was compiled with VS 2002. If it was 
compiled with VS 2003, then it was incompatible with VS 2002.

That was kind of annoying at the time.

Eventually, I ended up with separate versions for VS 2002, VS 2003 and later 
VS 2005 anyway.

Now I am back in the old situation. My Add-In is compatible for VS 2005 and 
2008. So far, I haven't even tried to compile it with VS 2008.

By now you can probably guess what my question will be. If I compile my 
Add-In with VS 2008, will it still run with VS 2005, or will it be 
incompatible?

Phil

date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:48:23 +0100   author:   Phil Jollans

Re: Compiling an Add-In for VS 2005 and 2008   

"Phil Jollans" wrote:
> [...] If I compile my Add-In with VS 2008, will it still run 
> with VS 2005, or will it be incompatible?

Recently I made VS add-in with C# in VS 2008 (.NET target version 
is 2.0). It loads and runs both in VS 2005 and VS 2008 without any 
problem.

HTH
Alex

date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:02:33 +0200   author:   Alex Blekhman

Re: Compiling an Add-In for VS 2005 and 2008   

Thanks Alex,

that is very good news. I will try it out.

Phil

date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:29:02 +0100   author:   Phil Jollans

Re: Compiling an Add-In for VS 2005 and 2008   

I'm guessing that the problem with it being compatible with 2003 but
not 2002 was due to the fact that VS was compiling your assemblies
against .net 2.0 rather than 1.1... I can't quite remember the release
order but that could be possible.

With 2008 you can actually develop side by side with 2005 since you
can target versions of the .net Framework. In fact just open 2008
create a new solution then add all of your projects. You will have a
2005 solution and a 2008 solution file that you can use to run the
exact same projects and develop side by side with 2005 developers. The
fact that they both work and build means that you can litterally
compile the exact same assembly with 2008 as with 2005. I would have
no fear in upgrading if I was you!

Of course doing that will result in you not being able to take
advantage of some of the new .net 3.5 features. But if you were to
upgrade the entire project to 3.5 and 2008 it "should" still be
backwards compatible. If you're properly under source control the
worst thing that can happen is that you have to "revert" your changes
if it has undesierable results.

date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:34:14 -0800 (PST)   author:   Justin Chase