Opening VB 2013 Projects in VB 2012

[sackerman]

Hello and thank you all for participating in this forum. It's awesome.

I just started a Visual Basic Called Visual Basic 2012 at my local community college. The class is using the book "Starting Out With>>>Visual Basic 2012" by Tony Gaddis and Kip Irvine. The class uses VS 2012; I have VS 2013. I am wondering if I am creating projects with VS 2013, will my instructor be able to open them in VS 2012? I have not been able to find out.

Thank you for your help. I'm very excited to start my journey with programming in VB!

Steve

[jmcilhinney]

No they won't. No project created in any version of VS can be opened in an earlier version without manual intervention. If your class is using VS 2012 then you should use VS 2012 as well, at least for stuff related to that class. There is no issue having multiple versions of VS installed on the same system, so installing VS 2012 will have no effect on your existing VS 2013 installation, except that VS 2012 will become the default app for some actions because it was the last installed.

There's no links for VS 2012 Express on the main download page but here are the relevant links:

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop (traditional Windows desktop applications)
Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8 (Windows Store, i.e. Metro/Modern UI, apps)
Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web

Make sure to install the latest Update for VS 2012 after installing if it's not already:

Visual Studio 2012 Update 4

It's worth noting that VS 2013 can round-trip projects created in VS 2012 and VS 2010, i.e. you will still be able to open them in their original version afterwards. VS 2012 can do the same for VS 2010 projects. In any other case, opening a project created in a previous version will upgrade the project to the current version and render it unable to be opened in its original version.

[TnTinMN]

No they won't. No project created in any version of VS can be opened in an earlier version without manual intervention. If your class is using VS 2012 then you should use VS 2012 as well, at least for stuff related to that class.

Visual Studio 2013 Compatibility
Visual Studio 2013
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When you are considering whether you should move to Visual Studio 2013, you can use this document to find out which solutions, projects, files, and other assets that you created in Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio 2010 SP1 will run without modification in Visual Studio 2013.

Many widely used assets behave the same in Visual Studio 2013 and the two earlier versions. For example, in Visual Studio 2013, you can open a project that was created in Visual Studio 2012, change it, and then reopen it in Visual Studio 2013; your changes persist and the project behaves the same as it does in Visual Studio 2012. The same is true for many assets that were created in Visual Studio 2010 SP1.

If you use Visual Studio 2013 together with Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio 2010 SP1, you can create and modify projects and files in any of the three versions. You can transfer projects and files among the versions as long as you don't add features that are not supported by one of the versions.

To verify, I just created a simple WinForm app in VS2013 and then re-targeted to .Net 4.0. The solution opened just fine is VB2010 Express.

[sackerman]

To verify, I just created a simple WinForm app in VS2013 and then re-targeted to .Net 4.0. The solution opened just fine is VB2010 Express.

Thank you. This is good news. I don't think we will be getting into any advanced and/or newer features. I'll ask, but so far we've just created simple forms with a few buttons and text boxes.

I did follow your advice and installed VS 2012 alongside 2013. Fortunately, I will only lose one project I did which displayed a map. That stinks, because I think it's due tomorrow.

[.paul.]

I tried too. A Vb2013(Desktop) project should open without any issues in VB2012 Pro.

[.paul.]

why lose any projects? if you saved your work, you have it.

[jmcilhinney]

To verify, I just created a simple WinForm app in VS2013 and then re-targeted to .Net 4.0. The solution opened just fine is VB2010 Express.

Hmmm... I must have made an invalid assumption then. I read about project round-tripping and assumed it was only for projects created in the older version but apparently not. Maybe that was the case for VS 2012 but VS 2013 takes it a step further. I'm going to have to test all the possibilities for myself now then.

[techgnome]

It used to be the case... but starting with VS2012 they stopped that. The solution file version is no longer tied to the VS version. It's now all about the FW version. As long as you can target the right version for what ever version of VS you're using, it'll be fine.

For the first year on my current project, I was blissfully using VS2010 while the rest of the dev team was using VS2012 ... we're all now using VS2013. Not once did we have any issues.

-tg

[jmcilhinney]

It used to be the case... but starting with VS2012 they stopped that. The solution file version is no longer tied to the VS version. It's now all about the FW version. As long as you can target the right version for what ever version of VS you're using, it'll be fine.

For the first year on my current project, I was blissfully using VS2010 while the rest of the dev team was using VS2012 ... we're all now using VS2013. Not once did we have any issues.

-tg

That seems to confirm my misconception then. I thought it was only about not upgrading old projects but it seems that, sensibly, they took it further. I'm always happy to learn something new. @sackerman, sorry for steering you wrong.

[sackerman]

Thank you all for the responses. I just wanted to to make sure I understand correctly, I can make simple applications in VS 2013, then open and run them in VS 2012, right?

I also wasn't sure what FW version was referring to in tg's post. Thank you again to all the folks who replied. And no problem about the mistaken information; I love to learn and getting corrected information just solidifies things for me. I appreciate all the responses.

Sackerman.

[passel]

FW refers to FrameWork, in this case .Net Framework.
Each Visual Studio release pretty much coincides with a new version of the Framework.
I'm not sure of the difference between 2012 and 2013 off the top of my head (don't use either of them), but 2010 came out with .Net framework 4.0, and 2012 is FW 4.5.
You can target your builds to use a particular framework, so if you target 4.0, the solution/project will be compatible and capable of being opend in VS 2010.
So, you could have used 2013 and just targeted (if one needs to target something different, I don't know) 2012.

[jmcilhinney]

I'm not sure of the difference between 2012 and 2013 off the top of my head

The primary difference is support for Windows 8.1 app development. VS 2012 can build Windows 8 apps on Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 while VS 2013 can build Windows 8.1 apps on Windows 8.1. A Windows 8.1-specific app will run only on Windows 8.1 because it relies on the expanded API while a Windows 8 app will run on either.