How to share the same TFS workspace (same file system folder) between different versions of Visual Studio?

Question

How to share the same TFS workspace (same file system folder) between different versions of Visual Studio? Is it possible? within one TFS root I have several solutions with different Visual Studio versions and all of them under TFS version control. I need to delete project from each solution and version control part of sln file should be updated properly.

• Or should I create separate workspace for each Visual Studio version? - I want to ovoid later because it takes several hours to download the files to new workspace.
• Another option is to change format version number in sln file (and VS version) and delete project from the same VS version (say 2012) within same workspace. It looks like the different versions of VS share the same format for sln files. (I have sln of all versions from 2005) But i'm not confident in this hack.

Updated: So I will appreciate answer with two aspects in mind (2 subitems but both closely related to TFS because TFS has its partition in sln file and shifts numbers after project removing):

• ad-hock recipe to delete project (here we can change VS format version, etc)

• general approach to coexist different VS versions within one workspace (to build, change code, check in, etc) - I already have TFS structure and can't change it - I can manipulate only with local PC settings/workspaces/mappings, etc. Or explanation why such coexistence is not possible.

Answer 1

From VS 2010 onwards (2010, 2012, 2013) the solution files are compatible, so you can usually switch between these versions of Visual Studio without problems.

For earlier versions the easiest approach is to have separate solution files (e.g. MyProject.sln, MyPorject2008.sln, MyProject2005.sln). You will need to manually apply updates that you make (adding/removing files etc) across all these sln files, but otherwise they will coexist happily.