4/20/11

Start Multiple Projects with Visual Studio 2008 and 2010

By default, Visual Studio allows us to set a single Startup project on a solution. There are instances when we need to start multiple projects. A typical case is when we have a client and server console application, and we want to debug/start both at the same time.
There is a feature on Visual Studio (2008 and 2010) that allows us to start multiple projects within a solution. To configure multiple Startup projects follow these steps:
·         Right Click on the solutions name
·         Select properties
·         On the Left panel, click on Common Properties and select Startup Project
·         On the right panel, check Multiple startup projects
·         For each project you want to start, set the action to Start or Start without debugging (do no step into the code). For the projects you do not want to start, set the action to None
·         If you need to start the projects in a particular order, you should stock up the projects in the order in which they should start. For example, you may need the server project to start first, and the client project should start second. To move the order of the projects, select the project name (under the Project column) and click the Up/Down arrow. The projects on the top of the list start first.
·         Click the OK button
You can now notice that none of the project  names is in boldfaced letters, but if you look at the solution name, you can see that the solution name is on boldfaced letter. This is a quick way to identify when multiple projects are set as startup projects.  To select only a single startup project, just click on the project name and click set as Startup Project.  This unselects the multiple startup project options from the solutions properties, and it sets the single startup project selection.
I hope this tip helps

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