by jmorris
7. January 2011 02:16
I am convinced that Microsoft’s decision to set the build profile of projects created with the Console Application template to “.NET 4 Client Profile” is a work of the devil itself! Why you might ask? Because it is set to this profile by default and because it will cause projects that should rightfully compile to fail, without an adequate explanation of why!
The reason this happens is because VS 2010 will allow you to reference projects and/or DLLs compiled under the “.NET 4 Framework” target, which may contain references to resources excluded by the “.NET 4 Client Profile” without complaining or warning the user. What a horrible, frustrating “feature”…
Here is a formal description from MSDN:
“The .NET Framework 4 Client Profile is a subset of the .NET Framework 4 that is optimized for client applications. It provides functionality for most client applications, including Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Forms, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and ClickOnce features. This enables faster deployment and a smaller install package for applications that target the .NET Framework 4 Client Profile.” – MSDN
Here is an example of a compile time error caused by this:
The weird, confusing part is that while typing in the using statement for the namespace, intellisense will show you the namespaces and the object viewer will confirm that they exist. However, when you go to compile it will fail! Very frustrating!!!
This fix is very easy, simply right click on the project and select properties and then in the “Target Framework” dropdown, select “.NET 4 Framework” and your good to go. I am hoping that this will be fixed or changed in VS2010 SP1 that should be released soon.