Understanding vsprops files

I've began using .vsprops files (along side .vcproj files) on VS2005 SP1. I discovered that you can do something that looks like that:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"? >
< VisualStudioPropertySheet
projecttype="Visual C++"
version="8.00"
name="whatever" inheritedpropertysheets=".\randomprefix_$(RANDOM_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE).vsprops">
< /VisualStudioPropertySheet >

This is cool, you can modify which vsprops file will be inherited by an externally defined environment variable, before starting Visual Studio. Ok fine, then try further:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"? >
< VisualStudioPropertySheet
projecttype="Visual C++"
version="8.00"
name="whatever" inheritedpropertysheets="$(SolutionDir)..\randomdir\random_file.vsprops">
< /VisualStudioPropertySheet >

Cool again! I can use locally defined variable in Visual Studio. Ok, then let's try to do something useful:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"? >
< VisualStudioPropertySheet
projecttype="Visual C++"
version="8.00"
name="whatever" inheritedpropertysheets="randomprefix_$(ConfigurationName).vsprops">
< /VisualStudioPropertySheet >

It fails. :( That would have been useful: include a vsprops file named after the current configuration name (debug or release or whatever). Here a counter example:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"? >
< VisualStudioPropertySheet
projecttype="Visual C++"
version="8.00"
name="whatever" outputdirectory="$(SolutionDir)$(ConfigurationName)" >
< /VisualStudioPropertySheet >

Yes, that actually works. In fact, you can even set « CharacterSet="1" » in the vsprops even if the VS vsprops editor doesn't allow you to set this (the same applies to WholeProgramOptimization). So it seems like $(ConfigurationName) and $(SolutionDir) aren't defined at the same time, which is normal. The way VS looks at the project file looks like this:

1. Initial parsing
2. For each Configuration in Configurations
   
1. Load the InheritedPropertySheets attribute
   
1. Open recursively the property sheets
2. Load the Name attribute in Configuration in the vcproj
3. Process property sheets
4. Process the rest of the attributes
5. Load the rest
   

The thing is that you can use $(ConfigurationName) in the OutputDirectory attribute but not in the InheritedPropertySheet. Too bad, what a missed opportunity. I somewhat tried playing with UserMacro but without any success.

Disclaimer: I didn't try with VS2008.
Disclaimer: I know the blogger's editor sucks and that I couldn't write real XML. In fact, they know it too. I just wished they cared. We're just all eager to have it actually fixed.