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Upgrade Project from vs 2015 to vs 2017

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Tuesday, March 21, 2017 9:45 PM | 2 votes

Hi,

I have a vs community 2015 UWP VB project that I would like to upgrade to vs community 2017.  The project opens and seems to run in vs 2017, but the .sln icon still displays "14" in the upper right corner and if I double-click on it to open, it opens in vs2015.  I can set the properties for the .sln to open into vs2017, but I assume there are other differences in the .sln (and other files in the solution) that should be converted to vs2017.  Is there a way to convert my vs2015 project to a vs2017 project?

Thanks,

-Rich

All replies (8)

Wednesday, March 22, 2017 6:44 AM âś…Answered | 3 votes

 Hi friend,

Welcome to MSDN forum.

Please find solution file (.SLN) file for your project and right click on it and open in notepad. At the top of the file change:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00

# Visual Studio 15

After this, the .sln icon will change to visual studio 2017.

To upgrade a project

  1.        In Visual Studio, on the File menu, click Open and then click Project/Solution, Web Site, or File, depending on the kind of project you are upgrading.
  2.        In the Open Project dialog box, select a project file, and then click Open.
  3.        If Visual Studio detects that the project or file was created in an earlier version of Visual Studio, the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard opens.
  4.        Complete the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard.

Note: Not all project has Visual Studio Conversion Wizard when update the project, if your project open with vs2017 without error message when build and run, it indicates that it converts to vs2017 successfully. Sometimes Visual Studio cannot fully convert a project from an earlier version of Visual Studio, you could refer to How to: Troubleshoot Unsuccessful Visual Studio Project Upgrades.( Visual Studio 2017 Documentation will release as soon as possible)

Best regards,

Joyce

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Wednesday, March 22, 2017 4:59 PM

Hi Joyce,

Thanks for your reply.  When I opened my project in vs2017, I did not see the conversion wizard open, but my project seems to build and run just fine.  Based on your answer, I assume that means it successfully converted -- even without any message indicating there was a conversion or that it was successful . . .

I do have one followup question: in the solution explorer my "converted" project name has "(Windows 8.1)" appended to it, as does any new UWP project I create (i.e., in the solution explorer my project name is "myProjectName (Windows 8.1)").  Do you know why vs2017 has added the "(Windows 8.1)" as shown below:

Thanks,

-Rich

Thursday, March 23, 2017 2:26 AM | 1 vote

Hi,

Thank you for your update.

Please have a look at this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ez524kew.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

If you still have issue about it, please open a new thread, because the question is not related to the first one. Thank you for understanding.

Best regards,

Joyce

Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" the responses that resolved your issue, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if not. This can be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. If you have any compliments or complaints to MSDN Support, feel free to contact [email protected].

Thursday, March 1, 2018 8:07 AM | 7 votes

The simplest solution IMO (also worked for 2012 and 2013) is:

  1. Open the solution file using Visual Studio 2017
  2. Select the solution file in Solution Explorer
  3. Select File / Save MySolution.sln As...
  4. Overwrite the existing solution file.

Thursday, March 1, 2018 8:11 AM

The simplest solution IMO (also worked for 2012 and 2013) is:

  1. Open the solution file using Visual Studio 2017
  2. Select the solution file in Solution Explorer
  3. Select File / Save MySolution.sln As...
  4. Overwrite the existing solution file.

Ok

Tuesday, July 31, 2018 6:01 PM

I had a VS2010 sln that did not automatically upgrade when I opened it in VS2017.  I tried the suggestion from Deepedro and it worked for me.

Thursday, October 25, 2018 7:42 AM

Where is that menu option (Save Solution)? I don't see that in my VS2017.

I have the same problem where .vcxproj files are converted fine (from VS2013->VS2017 and also from VS2015) but the .sln solution files are untouched. So the Visual Studio Exe Selector chooses the old VS all the time.

I want to look into text editing the .sln file but I need very specific version information it seems.

Monday, May 18, 2020 6:21 PM

I tried the solution given on the top of the page but it didn't work then I tried the solution from you and it worked perfectly well !

Thank you Deepedro,