Can I automatically increment the file build version when using Visual Studio?

Question

I was just wondering how I could automatically increment the build (and version?) of my files using Visual Studio (2005).

If I look up the properties of sa

Answer 1

I came up with a solution similar to Christians but without depending on the Community MSBuild tasks, this is not an option for me as I do not want to install these tasks for all of our developers.

I am generating code and compiling to an Assembly and want to auto-increment version numbers. However, I can not use the VS 6.0.* AssemblyVersion trick as it auto-increments build numbers each day and breaks compatibility with Assemblies that use an older build number. Instead, I want to have a hard-coded AssemblyVersion but an auto-incrementing AssemblyFileVersion. I've accomplished this by specifying AssemblyVersion in the AssemblyInfo.cs and generating a VersionInfo.cs in MSBuild like this,

  
    $([System.DateTime]::Now.ToString("yy"))
    $([System.DateTime]::Now.ToString("MM"))
    $([System.DateTime]::Now.ToString("dd"))
    $([System.DateTime]::Now.ToString("HHmm"))
    [assembly:System.Reflection.AssemblyFileVersion("$(Year).$(Month).$(Date).$(Time)")]
  
  
    
    
  

This will generate a VersionInfo.cs file with an Assembly attribute for AssemblyFileVersion where the version follows the schema of YY.MM.DD.TTTT with the build date. You must include this file in your project and build with it.