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Supporting New Visual Studio Versions

Below are the steps taken to add Visual Studio 2026 (v18) support to Diff All Files. Use these as an example of how to add support for future versions of Visual Studio.

  1. Make sure there are no pending changes, and do a git clean -xfd to remove all temp files.
  2. Create a new git branch from the main branch for the new Visual Studio version support. e.g. feat/AddVisualStudio2026Support
  3. Copy the VS.DiffAllFiles.VS2022 project directory, and name it VS.DiffAllFiles.VS2026.
  4. Change all file names with 2022 to 2026.
  5. Grep the new VS.DiffAllFiles.VS2026 project directory and rename all instances of 2022 to 2026.
  6. Open the solution in the new version of Visual Studio (e.g. 2026).
  7. Add the new 2026 project to the solution in Visual Studio, and let VS upgrade it if necessary.
  8. Add a new const string to the Guids.cs file for the new version, and generate a new unique Guid for it.
    • The new string name should match the name used in the VS.DiffAllFiles.VS2026Package.cs file's Guid attribute.
  9. In the new 2026 project, upgrade the Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools and Microsoft.VisualStudio.Sdk NuGet packages to the newest stable versions.
  10. Replace the .dll files in the 2026 project's VersionSpecificReferences directory with the Visual Studio 2026 version of the assemblies.
    • The assemblies were all found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer.
  11. Remove the VersionSpecificReferences references from the 2026 project (this may also delete the files from disk) and re-add them in Visual Studio so that the .csproj file is updated appropriately.
  12. Update the 2026 project's .vsixmanifest file as necessary.
    • Reset the version number to 1.0.0.
    • Change the Product ID Guid to match the new Guid added to the Guids.cs file earlier above.
    • Change any other basic information (Product name, description, tags, website URLs, etc.)
    • If needed, change the Install Targets and Prerequisites to target the new version of Visual Studio.
      • e.g. change [17.0, 18.0) to [18.0, 19.0).
      • Prior to VS 2026, we always had to update the version. VS 2026 tried to make extensions backward compatible with VS 2022 though, and they have not yet created a v18 of the API, so the marketplace rejects v18 as a valid install target. We may be able to get away with not updating the target versions going forward. Unfortunately, this means the VS 2026 installer may also be installed on VS 2022 instance, but will likely not work properly.
    • Change any other information needed to support the new .vsixmanifest requirements.
  13. Create a new Changelog file in the docs/Changelogs directory for the new Visual Studio version (e.g. Changelog_VS2026.md) and update it with the initial release information.
  14. Update the ReadMe file to add a link to the new Visual Studio version's marketplace page.
  15. If there are breaking Visual Studio library changes, you will need to update the shared code appropriately. Each head VSIX project has a preprocessor variable defined for the Visual Studio version. e.g. VS2026 for Visual Studio 2026. VS2013-2019 additionally have defined SUPPORTS_GIT_CONTROLS_EXTENSIBILITY which enables Git support for the Team Explorer window. This was added in VS2013, deprecated in a VS2019 patch release, and fully removed in VS2022 (in favor of Git Changes window).

That should be it (hopefully). Now build the project and test that everything still works. If all looks good, you can publish a new version of the extension for the new Visual Studio version, and merge your branch back into the main branch.