Make sure that the correct version of Visual Studio is opened using a batch file

I like most of other developers have several versions of  Visual Studio installed on my computer and it can be a hassle to get the correct version to open using a batch file.

I have a batch file that starts up the program that I normally use during the day and in this I have a start of Visual Studio. Now that Visual Studio 2013 has arrived I installed this on my machine that already have Visual Studio 2012 and 2010.

For my current project I need to use Visual Studio 2012 (due to an old TFS) so I want the batch file to start the correct version.

I have the followin line in the batch file

start /d "D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\" devenv.exe

This started to start up Visual Studio 2013 anyway and I couldn't understand why until I stumble upon the solution on another webpage.

I turns out that Windows associates devenv with a specified directory path through a setting in the register

My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\devenv.exe


This key was set to 

D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe

which meant that Visual Studio 2013 was started, to get Visual Studio 2012 to start instead I just needed to change the register setting to

D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe

Problem solved!