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Trying to open a VS 2012 solution (SLN file) explicitly in VS 2013 succeeds. Simply double-clicking it in Windows Explorer still opens it in VS 2012 instead.

I've read "Visual Studio 2012 doesn't convert vs2010 solution?" and followed the suggestion to "Save As..." the solution file.

Still it opens in VS 2012 by default.

My question:

How to change a SLN file to force it being opened in Visual Studio 2013?

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Uwe Keim
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6 Answers6

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The .sln file indicates the intended version as one of the early lines - for example:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio 2013

or:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio 2012

However - it can only make use of this if the default application for .sln files is the "Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector". It is not uncommon for the default .sln application to be a specific version instead. In windows 8:

enter image description here

you can tell which is the default because it says "keep using":

enter image description here

enter image description here

Marc Gravell
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  • Thanks, did it! And it's working. Although now _all_ VS 2012 solutions seem to be opened in VS 2013. Even those never opened before in VS 2013. That's confusing to me. – Uwe Keim Oct 22 '13 at 09:02
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    @UweKeim hmmm; that is not my experience; with the version selector as the default, for me the **correct** version of devenv is loaded per sln file - is it possible that you have loaded those solutions into VS2013 at any point? that will upgrade them – Marc Gravell Oct 22 '13 at 09:03
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    Well, your suggestion is more than sufficient to me. Love the now again yellow folder icons, compared to those dark ones in VS 2012! – Uwe Keim Oct 22 '13 at 09:05
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    @UweKeim if you look in the sln file, the second line tells it which IDE to open with: `# Visual Studio 2013` vs `# Visual Studio 2012` – Marc Gravell Oct 22 '13 at 09:06
  • Yeah, funny enough I changed that to a (non-existing) "# Visual Studio 2011" some month ago. After changing it now to "# Visual Studio 2012", it opens correctly in VS 2012. Doh! – Uwe Keim Oct 22 '13 at 09:08
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    @UweKeim I imagine it has a fallback of "if I don't recognise the value, or that IDE is not installed, use the most recent IDE installed" – Marc Gravell Oct 22 '13 at 09:09
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    for me the default launcher was already set to "Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector" but it was launching solutions made in visual studio 2013 in the 2012 ide!!. But re-applying the "Microsoft Visual Studio Version Selector" as the default fixed it. Now 2012 opens in 2012 ide and 2013 opens in 2013 ide. (I'm using windows 7 64bit) – Peter Flannery Oct 31 '13 at 15:08
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    Thanks - I _exactly_ need the way you described and labeled as "bad":). Now I associate .sln with vs2013 as in most of the cases I want them to be opened by 2013 even though the header of the sln file says 2012. – KFL Aug 14 '14 at 22:33
  • This helped me to locate old projects that still use (e.g. VS2005) by using grep for # Visual Studio 2005 in the .sln files. Thanks! – Bob Denny May 03 '16 at 15:06
  • It appears that the version selector attempts to use the second non-blank line in the solution file to resolve which of several installed Visual Studio IDEs in which to launch the application. Using that information and my external trusty text editor and file comparison tools (UltraEdit and UltraCompare), I deduced that "Visual Studio 2013" resolves to Visual Studio Community or better, while "Visual Studio 2013 Express for Windows Desktop" resolves to Visual Studio 2013 Express. Using this information, I was able to coerce a solution that I migrated before Community arrived to upgrade. – David A. Gray Dec 04 '16 at 22:21
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    For those looking to open a solution in Visual Studio 2017, change the line to `# Visual Studio 15` – MikeTV Nov 07 '17 at 17:15
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Note that you can also force the upgrade of a .sln or .proj file by using the commandline, where devenv is the target IDE version:

devenv "MyProject.sln" /upgrade

Example:

"%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" "D:\Source\MySolution.sln" /upgrade

Note that this does not open Visual Studio. An alternative is to, from within the IDE, select "Save As" for your solution file and overwrite or save the solution under new name.

Read more: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w15a82ay.aspx

zumey
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Seems like the OP has a working answer already ... but for me the problem was different. I had a VS 2012 solution (several actually) and wanted to convert them to 2013 (which I understand is a trivial change to the .sln file, but I wanted it done automatically in case there was some secret upgrade logic I was unaware of).

So I thought I would open it in VS2013, it would automatically upgrade as expected, and then I'd be set to double click the solution and see it in VS2013 going forward. But opening in VS2013 was NOT upgrading the solution for me automatically as expected and I could not find an explicit way to force the upgrade after opening the file in VS2013. I could work with the solution, save my changes, and close VS2013, but the .sln would remain unchanged and un-upgraded.

Turns out my problem was in how I was opening the solution ... as a habit I right click files and select "open with" to choose the program I want to use to open a file. I do this frequently. Note I am NOT talking about changing the default "open with" program but just opening a file with a specific program once. So I would right click the .sln file... open with Visual Studio 2013 ... and nothing would upgrade.

Eventually I thought to go into VS2013, then do File > Open and select the .sln file (this is foreign to me since I hardly if ever open anything this way, maybe you are the same way). Anyway that did upgrade the solution file instantly.

After upgrading, lines 2-3 of the .sln file changed from this:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio 2012

to this:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio 2013
VisualStudioVersion = 12.0.30501.0
MinimumVisualStudioVersion = 10.0.40219.1

So from my experience, to automatically update a VS2012 .sln to VS2013, you must open VS2013 and select the .sln from the File > Open dialog. Using the explorer shell to force the .sln file to open in VS2013 does not invoke the upgrade logic (apparently).

As a further note, I tested with another solution, and after making changes through Configuration Manager (which obviously "touches" the .sln file) it did upgrade a VS2012 to VS2013, even after having opened it through right-click open with.

TCC
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    This is exactly what I was trying to do. I have Update 3, and one project automatically updated, but the other would only change when I opened the Configuration Manager. Thanks for the tips! – Erica Aug 07 '14 at 17:57
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    I even opened a vs 2012 .sln from within VS 2013 but for me it did NOT upgrade. Weird. – PositiveGuy Oct 23 '14 at 21:05
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    It's not the opening of the solution in VS 2013 that triggers the upgrade, it's an action that modifies the solution, such as changing a setting in the active configuration. – bleater Nov 07 '14 at 04:36
  • i tried it to upgrade from vs2013 to vs2015 and it works. – dingx Jul 07 '16 at 08:15
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I had a solution that had previously been upgraded from 2010 to 2013 successfully but still showed the .sln as associated with 2010.

I tested all the methods given in this thread and the only one that successfully corrected the .sln was to open Visual Studio 2013 alone, then open the solution that still was associated with 2010 in the IDE, then use the [File] > [Save (name).sln as] to overwrite the existing .sln file.

Setting the file assoc of the .sln to be the "Visual Studio version selector" made no change and the solution continued to open in 2010.

The devenv (name).sln /upgrade method made no change to my .sln file.

Hacking the raw text of the .sln file corrupted mine and it would not open at all.

Jeff
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  • Cheers Jeff, I just run into the same situation as you. I must say though it's nice that Microsoft decided that VS 2013 doesn't try to upgrade everything it touches, unlike previous versions of VS! Usually it's the other way around, and I'm trying to prevent my different VS IDEs from upgrading each others .proj and .sln files :) – Simon Brangwin Dec 10 '15 at 23:15
  • @SimonBrangwin which is an improvement, except that if you explicitly call with /upgrade as per the other answer(s), you would expect that it would actually perform the requested upgrade! – stannius Jan 06 '16 at 17:08
  • Jeff thanks! This is the only way I could find to upgrade my VS 2013 sln to open by default with 2015. I also had to open up the solution explorer and manually select the solution node at the top of the explorer tree to see the 'Save (name).sln as' option in the File menu. – ToastyMallows Jun 17 '16 at 17:53
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To solve this issue I just changed the following lines of the .sln file:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 11.00
# Visual Studio 2010

into these:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio 2013

The comment line is to be changed as it is parsed by the solution loader.

Update:

A better approach is to use the devenv command line as pointed in another reply, which will do it safely for you.

Zac
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This may work for readers attempting to upgrade a solution file to Visual Studio 2015. (I upgraded a VS 2012 solution.)

  1. Open the solution in VS 2015.
  2. Add a new project to the solution. (I added a test project.)
  3. Remove the project.
  4. Save the solution.

You may want to delete the removed project folder at this time since step 3 did not delete it.

This worked for me when neither zumey’s nor TCC’s answers did.

EDIT

Metro Smurf had a similar, but easier answer than mine for a similar question. His steps were:

  1. Open solution in VS 2015
  2. Right-click solution > Add > New Solution Folder (name does not matter)
  3. Save solution
  4. Delete the newly added solution folder
  5. Save solution
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Mike Grove aka Theophilus
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