How to downgrade from Visual Studio 2012 project to Visual Studio 2008

I am working with C# Windows application . I've recently converted a Visual Studio 2008 project to the new Visual Studio 2012 project . Now I have to downgrade this project to Visual Studio 2008 . Is there any way to downgrade this project?


Well 2012 is compatible with 2010, i am not sure this would work but i found this on how to go back from 2010 to 2008, hope it works for you with 2012 (Original Link):

  1. Make back up of your .sln file

  2. Open your VS 2010 .sln in notepad.

    It should look something like this:

    Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00 
    # Visual Studio 2010  Project("{FAE04EC0-3 ......
    
  3. Change the Version 11.0 to Version 10.0 and the Visual Studio 2010 to 2008

    It should look something like this:

    Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00 
    # Visual Studio 2008  Project("{FAE04EC0-3 .....
    

Visual Studio Project Converter?


In addition to the solution provided which is correct, I will add that you need to make sure you don't have code similar to this one in the App.config file, otherwise no matter you will do, you will not be able to run the project(s):

<startup> <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"/> </startup>


In Visual Studio 2012, change all projects to target .NET Framework 3.5.

In Visual Studio 2008, create a blank solution and then add all .csproj/vbproj to it.

There is no way to go back for .cxxproj Visual C++ projects to Visual Studio 2008.


Go to: Project Properties->Configuration Properties->General->Platform Toolset. Change to different Visual Studio version.