Converting VS2010 Solution To VS2008

If you are working with VS 2010 (any edition) and cannot open your 2010 solution on VS 2008, then just follow these 3 steps:

For .sln:

    Open the solution file in your favorite text editor (example: Notepad++).
    Find the following:
    Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00.
    # Visual Studio 2010.
    Replace with:
    Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00. (I)
    # Visual Studio 2008. (II, optional)

For .csproj/vbproj:

    Open project file in your favorite text editor (example: Notepad++).
    Find the following:
    .
    Replace with:
    . (III)

That's it.
Now you can open your solution file on VS2008.
Reverse of this will enable VS2008 solution to open in VS2010.


After these changes, you may receive the below error:

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Microsoft Visual Studio
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Unable to read the project file 'XXX.csproj'.

C:\Project path\XXX.csproj(89,11): The imported project "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the  declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
---------------------------
OK   Cancel  
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To fix this error, just change the VS version(v10.0 to v9.0) in your .csproj/vbproj file, that's all.