How can I tell what version of Visual Studio was last used to work on a project?

Question

I\'m working with some older code, and I think the person who last built it was using Visual Studio 6. There\'s no .vcproj file, but the .dsp and .dsw files have the following h

Answer 1

Check the binary signatures in the compiled files.
By this you can get compiler version.
By compiler version you can get Visual Studio version.

By compiler I mean not only cl.exe, but resource compiler, linker, etc. Do you have some compiled materials?

Answer 2

When I opened the solution file of a project using a notepad, the version of visual studio was written on the top, with the Format version number, like this -

---

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00
#Visual Studio 2008

Answer 3

I opened a VisStudio 6.0 dsw file i have, and it reads Format Version 6.00.

I opened a VisStudio 2008 sln file i have, and it reads Format Version 10.00.

So i assume so?

It corresponds. if 6.0 is version 6.0, then Visual Studio .NET (2002) is 7.0, Visual Studio .NET 2003 is 8.0, Visual Studio 2005 is 9.0, and Visual Studio 2008 is 10.00

Answer 4

The the solution/VS version matrix is:

• VS 6.0 -> 6.0
• VS 2002 -> 7.0
• VS 2003 -> 8.0
• VS 2005 -> 9.0
• VS 2008 -> 10.0
• VS 2010 -> 11.0
• VS 2012 -> 12.0
• VS 2013 -> 10.0 to 12.0
• VS 2015 -> 10.0 to 14.0
• VS 2017 -> 10.0 to 15.0
• VS 2019 -> 10.0 to 16.0

Compatibility between solutions does not guarantee compatibility between projects. Check the Visual Studio 2013 Compatibility document for more detail.