MSVC .NET
From ZDoom Wiki
Versions Lower than VS.NET 2003
If you dont have .NET 2003, you will get a plethora of errors trying to open and compile the source. Follow these instructions, and you should find it possible.
1. Downgrade the source project files
All the project files for ZDoom are saved as version 7.1 - if you dont have version 7.1, they will not load for you. There is a utility that can downgrade them for you here: http://www.codeproject.com/macro/vsconvert.asp (email registration required)
At the very least, you need to convert zdoom.vcproj, zdoom.sln, flac.vcproj and zlib.vcproj. You can also convert the project files needed for the zdoom.wad integration, but I personally did not find it to be useful enough to bother (there are a lot). If you dont want to either, just remove all projects from zdoom.sln except for flac, zlib and obviously zdoom.
This process is not without flaws, but at the very least it will allow you to open the project files, which is probably preferable to making a new one yourself.
Special note: if you dont like giving your email to random sites, you can also just follow the simple instructions to convert the files manually.
2. Update the compiler
You will need to grab the free MSVC toolkit from here:
Install the toolkit, and then add this /bin path from it to the MSVC search path (this is in tools->options->projects->VC++ Directories)
You may notice that even after doing this, you will get in the region of 140 linker errors relating to a file called 'libcmt.pdb'. These may be annoying, but I have not yet found a way to avoid them, and they appear to be harmless anyway.
Note that you can probably use the toolkit to even older versions of Visual Studio, as long as you can create or convert the project files for your version as well.
