up vote 2 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

Just out of curiosity - what does the number represent? At first I thought it was simply the version/year, because I saw some 10's and some 8's (I have vs 2010 and 2008) but, then why do I have some 9's aswell?

alt text

link|improve this question
92% accept rate
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

The numbers correspond to the internal version numbers of various editions of Visual Studio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio#Version_history

In brief:

Visual Studio 6.0 (1998)
Visual Studio .NET (2002) = version 7
Visual Studio .NET 2003 = version 7.1
Visual Studio 2005 = version 8
Visual Studio 2008 = version 9
Visual Studio 2010 = version 10

The number on the icon indicates the version that the project or solution is compatible with.

link|improve this answer
Great, I guess it never occurred to me that the versions were not simply the years, but it makes sense! (This made me think of how Windows 7 is actually windows version 6.1) – roviuser Sep 29 '10 at 16:51
feedback
up vote 2 down vote

It's what version of Visual Studio the solution was created with. 10 is for Visual Studio 2010, 9 is for Visual Studio 2008, 8 was for 2005, and 7 was for 2003. You might seen an 8 sometimes with VS 2008 if you set it to target .Net 2.0 features only, but that usually means you found an older solution file somewhere.

link|improve this answer
+1 for mention of the .NET target for 2008 - That's good to know! – roviuser Sep 29 '10 at 16:50
1  
@roviuser - Note that it doesn't happen by default. In fact, I think it's a bug when it happens. VS2008 solutions that target .Net 2.0 should still use the VS9 format solution file. – Joel Coehoorn Sep 29 '10 at 16:57
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.