Obscure Visual Studio Conversion Wizard Error

This refers to a problem that arose when converting a Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 solution to a Visual Studio 2005 solution using the Conversion Wizard.

Background: We have several samples that we are shipping with our upcoming CTP. Because the outputted binary is included as part of the integration build I included it in the project so that I could check the whole set in at the same time without having to find the files in Windows Explorer (I use the Ankh VS plugin for SVN). This has worked fine up until now.

Problem: Yesterday QA came back to me with an odd bug: When one of the samples that I recently created was opened on a machine with only VS2005 installed and the project (which is shipped as a VS03 project) was run through the conversion wizard, it failed to build with the following error:

Error 1 Unable to copy file "C:\Documents and Settings\redfive\Desktop\Samples\Smart Stock\bin\Debug\SmartStock.exe" to "bin\Debug\bin\Debug\SmartStock.exe". Could not find file 'C:\Documents and Settings\redfive\Desktop\Samples\Smart Stock\bin\Debug\SmartStock.exe'. SmartStock

Strange.

Issue: It turns out that problem was the above mentioned inclusion of the output binaries in the solution file. When the Conversion Wizard ran it added the property "Copy if newer" to SmartStock.exe. This caused the build to fail.

Resolution: Remove the reference to the exe in the project. This shortcut works fine if your solution is going to only be used in VS03 or VS05 but as described above it will fail on conversion.

(this posted so that anyone googling the same problem will get a hit, unlike I did!)