Upgrading Visual Studio Projects (SQL Server Compact)

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When you open a Visual Studio project in Visual Studio 2008, the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard starts. The wizard upgrades the Visual Studio project to Visual Studio 2008. After the upgrade, the project will not open in the earlier versions of Visual Studio. A backup of the project should be created. To create a backup of the project, in the wizard, select Yes, create a backup before converting.

Note

The following steps are applicable for SQL Server Compact 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) if Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is installed.

The Visual Studio Conversion Wizard also upgrades the SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition (version 3.0) and SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (version 3.1) references and the dataset designer file to SQL Server Compact 3.5 references. The limitations of upgrading SQL Server Compact projects by using the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard are as follows:

  • The database file (.sdf file) is upgraded if it is unencrypted. If the database file is encrypted, you must manually upgrade by using the Add Connection dialog box in Visual Studio 2008.
  • If the project is using ClickOnce to publish applications, the application should be re-published after it has been upgraded in Visual Studio 2008. When re-publishing the ClickOnce application in Visual Studio 2008, you will see a message that SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition prerequisite could not be found for bootstrapping. You can ignore the message.