Link to information about side-by-side versioning and XNA Game Studio 3.1

  • Article

Stephen Styrchak recently posted an item on his blog that I wanted to link to here.  The post describes side-by-side versioning in the versions of XNA Game Studio that we have shipped so far and provides an introductory overview for how installation, versioning and project upgrades will work in the recently announced XNA Game Studio 3.1 release.

Here is a summary of the key setup and Visual Studio project creation and project upgrade behaviors you will see once XNA Game Studio 3.1 is available:

Setup behavior

  • You must uninstall XNA Game Studio 3.0 before you can install XNA Game Studio 3.1.
  • XNA Game Studio 3.1 will install and run side-by-side on the same system as XNA Game Studio 2.0, XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 and 1.0 Refresh, and Visual Studio 2005.
  • XNA Game Studio 3.1 will integrate into Visual C# 2008 Express Edition or up-level editions of Visual Studio 2008 (Standard, Professional, Team System, etc).

Visual Studio project creation and upgrade behavior

  • XNA Game Studio 3.1 will allow you to create, open, build, deploy and debug both 3.0 and 3.1 games. You will not be required to upgrade a 3.0 game to 3.1 in order to continue to use it after installing XNA Game Studio 3.1.
  • Upgrading a 2.0 game to 3.0 will work exactly like it does today in XNA Game Studio 3.0. You will open the 2.0 project in Visual C# 2008 Express Edition or Visual Studio 2008 and use the built-in Visual Studio Conversion Assistant.
  • Upgrading a 3.0 game to 3.1 will be invoked manually by clicking on a new Upgrade Solution menu item that will appear for 3.0 projects. This menu item will upgrade all 3.0 projects in the currently selected solution to 3.1 (including game projects, content projects, game library projects and content pipeline extension library projects).