How to open two Solution in one Visual Studio IDE?

Question

I am working on two different solutions, say, Solution1 and Solution2. As these two solutions are dependent upon each other, I have to open two separate Visual Studio while developing.

It is really difficult to switch between these Visual Studio. I can't merge these two solutions into one as Solution1 is being used by other projects and all are part of Source Control.

Just wondering, can I open both solutions in the same Visual Studio IDE? I searched a lot but no luck. Any suggestions on existing VS AddIn or how to develop it would also be helpful.

• Visual Studio version - 2012 Ultimate
• Source Control - TFS

Solution 1

Create a third Solution C than includes project from both A and B: you can keep C as a local file i.e. you don't check it in version control if this can disturb the team.

Else you can open two instances of Visual Studio and switch at need: VS is smart enough to sense file system changes, but you have to be careful in saving before switching.

Solution 2

Does it have to be within the same IDE instance?

You could right click the VS icon in the task bar, select "Visual Studio 20__", and you will have two seperate instances of VS. You can then open separate solutions in both, without merging the two under one solution.

This will eat up far more resources, however. The previous responses are preferable.

Solution 3

What you are asking is impossible and extremely dysfunctional.

The supported solution would be to add all of the projects from Solution B to Solution A. Then you can open a single solution with all of your work. If you want compartmentalisation within your solution you can use solution folders.

If you can you should have a separate solution for the core components and package them as a nuget package. Both of your other solutions can then take a dependency on that single shared package.