Thread: renaming a project created with MSVC 6

well today I found that the name of the project that I am working on is in use by another program, so I will have to change its name before I release it.

I have another name in mind, however, when I tried to rename my project, it didn't work quite like I expected it to. first let me run you through what I did:

1. created a .RAR archive of the originally named project (for a backup, good thing I did this). my originally named project compiles, builds, and runs flawlessly.

2. renamed the (.c, .h, .rc) files in the originally named project's directory to the new name.

3. created a new empty Win32 Application project in msvc with the new name.

4. copy and pasted the (renamed) files from the originally named project's directory into the newly named project's directory.

5. added the files into the newly named project/workspace using msvc's file view.

6. compiled and built the newly named project successfully, 0 errors 0 warnings.

7. ran the newly named project, which works fine, until I activate a popup menu, which appears, but when I click one of the items on it (which is supposed to activate an open file dialog, which it does in the originally named project), I get an error from Windows stating that the application needs to be closed.

I do not recieve this error in the originally named project. I can tell you that I am 100% sure that the renaming somehow caused the error. I did not change ANY code before or after the rename, I did not touch the code at all.

can anyone please tell me if it is possible to rename a project created with msvc (without rewriting the whole thing), and if so, how to go about it without screwing it up like I have here?

I really don't want to have to rewrite this program from scratch because of something as simple as a name change, it is easily over 300 lines, I have perfected the dialogs/controls in the resource file, and it is about 90% complete at this point.

ANY help at all here would be greatly appreciated. thank you in advance!

Do you plan to release your project or just an executable?
There is a simple way using project properties to change the target file name as you like. Why do you need to change the project name?

BTW to change the WS name - you just rename the .dsw file and open it...

I plan to release the executable along with the source code.

I found a neat little program written in Perl called vsrename, it does exactly what I wanted and worked to do the job:

http://www.codeproject.com/tools/vsrename.asp

now everything is fine again, except for the Debug build for some very strange reason . if I use the Release build configuration, my program works fine, when I click the item in the popup menu it opens the open file dialog. but when I use the Debug build configuration, I get the same error I posted about in the above o_O .

but ahh well, at least the Release copy of the EXE works.