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I cam across this question here on SE:

Can Visual Studio 2012 be installed side-by-side w/ Visual Studio 2010?

According to one comment with a good amount of upvotes, having 2010 and 2012 installed at the same time can present issues. I then came across this MSDN page about 2013:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh266747.aspx

If you use Visual Studio 2013 together with Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio 2010 SP1, you can [blah blah]

That suggests that 2013 can be safely installed along with VS2012. Can anyone confirm?

Community
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oscilatingcretin
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  • As far as I know, 2013 is supposed to work just fine side by side with 2012. I use them both on this machine and have no problems. – Nacimota Oct 18 '13 at 11:17

5 Answers5

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Take a look at Brian Harry´s Blog post announcing Visual Studio 2013.

VS 2013 can be installed side by side with previous versions of Visual Studio or, if you have a VS 2013 pre-release, it can be installed straight over top of the pre-release. TFS 2013 cannot be installed side by side but can also be installed over top of either a previous version (TFS 2012 or TFS 2010) or a pre-release.

Jehof
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Looks like you can, yes.

You can install this version of Visual Studio on a computer that already has an earlier version installed.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms246609%28v=vs.120%29.aspx

Only issue I can see is during uninstallation, where the file associations may get lost.

Jamie Burns
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    From that same MSDN article, `If you uninstall a version of Visual Studio on a computer that has more than one version installed, the file associations for Visual Studio are removed for all versions. You can remap these file associations by using the Restore File Associations button on the Environment, General page of the Options dialog box.` – saluce Feb 13 '14 at 21:06
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I was having two installation on my computer. Really no problems.

MelMed
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From personal experience, I've come across multiple issues with using Visual Studio 2012 and prior, while a VS2013 installation exists on a machine.

Some of the issues include built executables failing to launch (double clicking .exe does nothing, but debugging them in VS launches them), and inability to compile solutions that mix C# and C++ projects.

I would avoid 2013 until these issues are resolved, as just having it installed on a machine breaks older code, even if you don't use VS2013.

There are some minor (compatibility) issues between using both VS2010 and VS2012 on the same Solution, but simply having VS2012 installed on your machine won't effect anything in VS2010.

Nicholas
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There may be compatibility issues with 2013 Community edition. I had VS 2012 Ultimate and VS 2013 Express installed and working without any issue, but as soon as I installed VS 2013 Community, my VS 2012 Ultimate install has been behaving unusually. When I first open VS 2012 U, there is a really long load time. When I perform some action (open a file, select a menu option, anything actually) I have to minimize and maximize VS 2012 U for the screen to refresh. I am still trying to figure it out myself - so if anyone has a solution, please share.

Byrdman
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