Workaround for Visual Studio 'Orcas' March CTP and Blend not playing together
I've had a couple of email exchanges with customers who are playing with Visual Studio Orcas and Expression Blend and facing challenges with incomaptibilities. The problems arise when trying to open Blend created projects in Orcas and Blend not being able to build Orcas related projects.
Thankfully, there is a workaround in place. From the readme:
11. Expression BlendTM projects fail to migrate correctly when opened in Visual Studio
Projects created using Microsoft Expression Blend™ are not migrated correctly when opened in Visual Studio. The project will still open in Microsoft Expression Blend™ and Visual Studio but will not build successfully in either product.
To resolve this issue
Edit the project file in Notepad and add “ToolsVersion=2.0” to the first line before opening the project in Visual Studio. For example:
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="2.0">
This change will prevent project upgrade. Projects will open and build in both Blend and Visual Studio but will not be upgraded to VS Orcas projects. As a result some Orcas project features may not work correctly.
12. Expression BlendTM cannot build Visual Studio Orcas solutions and projects
Solutions and projects created using Visual Studio Orcas will not build in Microsoft Expression Blend™. Solutions and projects will open successfully in Microsoft Expression Blend™ but will not build.
To resolve this issue
Build the solution in Visual Studio.
Thought it might be useful to post this here, as I tend not to read readme files and it might be easier to find this via your search engine of choice.
I'm having one major issue with Expression Design and Orcas, in that it doesn't work when Orcas is installed. It seems to be known about and will hopefully get fixed in the next preview.
Technorati tags: expression blend, expression design, visual studio, orcas