How do I make a Visual Studio 2015 C++ project compatible with Visual Studio 2010?

Question

My teacher is horsed to use Visual Studio 2010 by the school, because they don\'t want to bother installing anything new. I\'ve been using Visual Studio 2015

Answer 1

Updated for Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio 2019

You can make this work actually, with just a few changes, if you only use the Visual Studio IDE itself (not MSBuild on the command line) to compile, with more or less full functionality on both platforms.

Unfortunately the rules for C++ projects are different than C#/.NET, and require some manual intervention, unlike the C# projects fairly automatic for round tripping after project "upgrade". These changes will require editing the project files manually.

Later versions of Visual Studio will override the tools version when the build is run through the IDE. Simply setting the ToolsVersion to 4.0, to satisfy Visual Studio 2010 and then fixing the PlatformToolset in a common property group to get the correct default action in the Visual Studio 2015 IDE will probably do it.

The reason for setting PlatformToolset is so that the defaults for correctly when changing build properties, like when you go to Debug or Release settings in the IDE and choose you will get the 2015 version by default and not 2010.

Steps for Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio 2017, and Visual Studio 2019 cohabitation on same project file for C++:

1. ToolsVersion attribute to 4.0
2. Add common default value of PlatformToolset to v140 for Visual Studio 2015
3. Add common default value of PlatformToolset to v141 for Visual Studio 2017
4. Add common default value of PlatformToolset to v142 for Visual Studio 2019
5. Save file and reload project

1. Tools version to 4.0:

  
    
      
        Debug
        Win32
      ...

By changing only 14.0 to 4.0 in Project tag for ToolsVersion it becomes

  
    
      
        Debug
        Win32
      ...

2. Add common default value of PlatformToolset to v140 recognized only by Visual Studio 2015:

  
    {12345678-9876-ABCD-DCCA-765FE987AA1F}
    Win32Proj
    myProject
    8.1
  
  

By adding only the new PlatformToolset line to the bottom of the PropertyGroup it becomes:

  
    {12345678-9876-ABCD-DCCA-765FE987AA1F}
    Win32Proj
    myProject
    8.1
    v140
    v141
    v142
  
  

To also load in Visual Studio 2017, a line with toolset v141 is additional required as shown above to continue to seamlessly cross load projects between all three.

In Visual Studio 2019, a line with toolset v142 is additional required as shown above to continue to seamlessly cross load projects between all four.