Upgrading VS 2008 projects to VS 2010 projects with PowerShell script

<pre>$sourcePath = "D:\MigTest\Src"

# if TargetFrameworkVersion is not already 4.0
if($toolsVersion.Value -ne "4.0")
{
    # Upgrade Project / ToolsVersion="4.0"
    $toolsVersion.Value = "4.0"
 $isProjectXmlUpdated = $true
}
    
# if TargetFrameworkVersion is not already 4.0
# Upgrade TargetFrameworkVersion "v4.0"
$targetFrameworkElements = $projectGroup.GetElementsByTagName("TargetFrameworkVersion")
$oldToolsVersion = "v3.5"
foreach($targetFrameworkElement in $targetFrameworkElements)
{
    $oldToolsVersion = $targetFrameworkElement.InnerText
    $targetFrameworkElement.InnerText = "v4.0"
    $isProjectXmlUpdated = $true
    break
}

# Update OldToolsVersion from TargetFrameworkVersion
$oldToolsVersionElements = $projectGroup.GetElementsByTagName("OldToolsVersion")
if($oldToolsVersionElements -ne $null -and $oldToolsVersionElements.Count -gt 0)
{
    foreach($oldToolsVersionElement in $oldToolsVersionElements)
    {
        $oldToolsVersionElement.InnerText = $oldToolsVersion
  $isProjectXmlUpdated = $true
        break
    }
}

</pre><h2>Points of Interest</h2>

Execution Policy

When you try to run the above script, you will end up in access violation, the current script execution policy wont allow execution of the scripts. You can check the current execution policy using Get-ExecutionPolicy command. You need to update the execution policy to allow the script to run, Set-ExecutionPolicy to Unrestricted if you fully trust the script you are running. You should set the earlier execution policy once you are done with the script.

Starting process

We can start a process using Start-Process command let or by using Start-Job or simply by invoking the .exe directly. Each one of these have its own advantages.

Launching an exe as below, power shell console starts this process and continues with the next command, it wont wait for the response. In case of this script, even after the migration activity show its complete. Some of the devenv processing could still potentially be running in the background. Once all the devenv process are completed only then the upgrade is complete.

$devenv = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" 
&$devenv $fileName /Upgrade<code style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">  

The other alternate is to use Start-Proces command let which has an option to wait for the completion of the process.

$args = '$fileName /Upgrade' 
Start-Process $devenv $args -Wait  

XML Formatting

Once the project file is updated with Target framework and other xml elements, we need to write it back to the project file. the xml file not formatted anymore. To preserver or apply the prefered formatting we can use XmlTextWriter with correct Formatting and Indentation option.

    $StringWriter = New-Object System.IO.StringWriter 
    $XmlWriter = 
New-Object System.XMl.XmlTextWriter $StringWriter 
    $xmlWriter.Formatting 
= "indented" 
    $xmlWriter.Indentation = $Indent 
    
$xml.WriteContentTo($XmlWriter) 
    $XmlWriter.Flush() 
    
$StringWriter.Flush() 
    Write-Output $StringWriter.ToString() 

Further Updates

I am planning to updated the scripts with the following:

• Use configuration file for inputs to the script such as folder for conversion, location of the Visual studio 2010.
• Report for the upgrade in text or html format

References

Windows PowerShell Quick Reference

Microsoft Script Cente

Windows PowerShell Cheat Sheet