Build the Microsoft CRM 4.0 Plug-in Registration Tool with Visual Studio 2013

I had a recent CRM project where I needed the Plug-in Registration Tool for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.  I have the Plug-in Registration Tool for Microsoft CRM 2011, CRM 2013 and CRM Online readily available.  However, these versions of the Plug-in Registration Tool are not backward compatible to support Microsoft CRM 4.0.  The only option is to build the Microsoft CRM 4.0 Plug-in Registration Tool or find an already built one.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Software Development Kit (SDK) calls for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 as a requirements.  Both are pretty out-dated at this point.  So I went ahead and used the latest Visual Studio 2013 to build the Microsoft CRM 4.0 Plug-in Registration Tool.

Here are my notes in-additions to the good instructions found in the build the Microsoft CRM 4.0 Plug-in Registration Tool write-up:

• Opening the CRM 4.0 SDK pluginregistrationtool.csproj project file in Visual Studio 2013 will prompt that the project must be converted since it was created in a earlier version of Visual Studio:

• Need to update the pluginregistrationtool project properties to target .NET Framework 3.0 per this upgrade warning message.  The build will fail if keep with the default .NET Framework 2.0:

Here is the successful build of the CRM 4.0 Plug-in Registration Tool using Visual Studio 2013 – Yay!

Contact me if you are looking for some Microsoft CRM consulting.

Frank Lee, CRM MVP San Francisco
Workopia – Microsoft CRM Keeping it Simple!