Visual Studio won't open solution file

Question

I have a VS project (made by someone else), and when I try to open it on Visual Studio 2008, I get the following error message:

\"The selected file is a solution fil

Answer 1

You can edit the sln and csproj/vbproj files by hand and try that way, I've used this method with no side effects. In the sln file the first lines for VS2010 will say

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

and for a VS2008 solution:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00
# Visual Studio 2008

Also, in a 2010 project file you may find a section like

which will need to be modified as

With only these 2 types of changes I was able to open the solution & projects with VS 2008. Of course other differences may appear but if you have time you can always use a try/fail method until you manage it.