csproj - Visual Studio project type guids

Question

I downloaded a Visual Studio project but I can't open it in my copy of Visual Studio 2010. Useless error message:

The project type is not supported by this installation.

What software do I need to open the project type? It doesn't say.

I actually went and read the .csproj file, it tells me it's project type

<ProjectTypeGuids>{786C830F-07A1-408B-BD7F-6EE04809D6DB};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</ProjectTypeGuids>

Am I meant to recognise what software I need from this random string? This is absolutely ludicrous.

Answer 1

I found a site that lists some known project type GUIDs for Visual Studio 2008.

• FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC looks like a Windows C# project (probably a Class Library project?)
• 786C830F-07A1-408B-BD7F-6EE04809D6DB appears to be a Portable Library project

I agree that it's crazy to expect a developer to understand the project type represented by a GUID but whoever supplied the code you downloaded could have indicated what was required to build it!