Are there reasons to install Visual Studio 2012 when using Visual Studio 2010 and 2013?

Question

Since Visual Studio 2012, round-tripping is a feature that allows using a newer IDE version to work on projects and solutions created with older versions of Visual Studio.

When installing a fresh machine, I plan to install

• Visual Studio 2013 (the latest)
• Visual Studio 2010 (to maintain project types that are no longer supported, eg Deployment projects). I am aware alternatives exist but this requires recreating the deployment logic using different tools.

Are there scenarios where Visual Studio 2012 is still needed in addition to these versions?

Answer 1

Here is the link to entire list of Visual Studio 2013 compatibility issues. It lists every project type that is or isn't supported by VS 2010, VS 2012, VS 2013 and if you upgrade a project if it will load in a previous version.

VS Compatibility

A perfect example of why to keep VS 2012 is if want to use SQL CE as it is not supported in VS 2013, there are many others.

Answer 2

Same reason you are keeping VS2010 around. You must have VS2012 if is crucial to create Windows Store apps that target Windows 8.0. VS2013 can only target Windows 8.1

That's the only one I know of, can't claim it is exclusive, 2013 is a fairly minor increment over 2012. The release of Win8.1 and the heavy churn in C++ due to the C++11 language standard changes pushed the release earlier than the normal 2-3 year cycle.