Does my version of Visual Studio really matter

Question

So I understand that there are new features with every new version of VS and .NET. My question is, does it really matter which version of the IDE I use as long as I use the correct .NET framework when I build and compile my code?

I have a software program that I write my code for, and it only supports VS 2008 and .Net 3.5. I can write my code just fine in VS 2010/12 and compile it via .NET 3.5. Is there really issues with doing this? Will the outside program really know what version I used?

I am asking this because I really enjoy using the interface with VS 2012 compared to 2008/10.

Answer 1

There are new versions of .NET supported in higher releases of VS, but backward compatibility is maintained so basiacally you can use any version of VS higher than 2008

Answer 2

It's possible that the binary would not be bit identical with one compiled from an earlier version of Visual Studio, but it will execute just the same on any machine with the target version of .NET installed.

Answer 3

Is there really issues with doing this? Will the outside program really know what version I used?

In general, no. It shouldn't know or care which version of Visual Studio was used.

The one exception to this is potentially using Visual Studio 2012 to target .NET 4.0. Since 4.5 is an in place replacement of 4.0, and installing VS 2012 always installs .NET 4.5, it's possible that you may hit some of the backward compatibility issues in .NET 4.5.

This can be especially problematic if you don't have the reference assemblies for 4.0 and you hit one of the rare compatibility issues.

Since you're targeting .NET 3.5, which was the last CLR 2 in place upgrade, there should be no issues.

Answer 4

The Target Framework version is independent of the Visual Studio Version.

You can compile against .Net 3.5 in Visual Studio 2010 / 2012.