Software: VS2003 crashing...no option but a virtual machine

Update to the previous post. I followed the steps below thinking that I could work around VS2003 crashing. But I can’t. I can’t get the project’s “Properties” dialog to open without crashing the IDE. So my only option now is to spend a bunch of time building a virtual machine and doing my development in there. This totally sucks.

1. I renamed the project directory by adding a “_save” to the end of it. So the project directory is now MonteCarloLibrary_save.

2. I opened the solution file, IComWorkerCPP.sln, in notepad. And removed the MonteCarloLibraryPS project references. Then saved and closed the file. The MonteCarloLibraryPS project was created when I created the MonteCarloLibrary project and will be automatically be added back in after I recreate the MonteCarloLibrary project.

What I deleted:

Project("{8BC9CEB8-8B4A-11D0-8D11-00A0C91BC942}") = "MonteCarloLibraryPS", "MonteCarloLibrary\MonteCarloLibraryPS.vcproj", "{BB98981D-A1A3-41D2-8A3A-FABBD8065DDB}"
ProjectSection(ProjectDependencies) = postProject
EndProjectSection
EndProject

3. Reopened VS2003, and then opened the IComWorkerCPP.sln solution file. Recreated MonteCarloLibrary.

4. Went back out to my directory tree and copied my files from MonteCarloLibrary_save into the new MonteCarloLibrary directory. (Made sure to NOT copy the vcproj file!)

5. Back in VS2003 made sure to save everything and then back up the vcproj file. I’m using VSS for source control so I just checked everything in and kept it checked out....how I miss Perforce....

6. In VS2003 updated the MonteCarloLibrary project. Added the new files, reset the References. Saved and then archived again.

7. Ran a test build (did I get everything?). I missed adding the directory so that the compiler could find the digipede.framework.dll file for the #import call. Attempting to open the project results in a VS2003 crash.

8. Deal with crash, get the backed up vcproj file, reopen the solution. Cool, everything is back.

9. Problem....VS2003 keeps crashing when I try to open that project but this time the vcproj file is NOT truncated. hmmm. I save everything on my machine and reboot... rebooting doesn’t help.

10. I then went to VSS and grabbed an older vcproj file (the copy I saved before I added the files). I wanted to see if I could identify where the problem is occurring so this time, I’m going to add the files and then try to open the properties. Bamm. Down again.

11. I then got the vcproj file that was created by VS2003 when I added the MonteCarloLibrary project, I'm thinking that this will be the cleanest file. I am unable to open the "Properies" dialog without crashing VS2003. Since my job doesn't involve debugging Microsoft's code...I'm on to plan B.

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