Why doesn't Visual Studio auto increment your version number?

Question

This question asked how to auto update version number in VS 2010 : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4025704/publishing-in-net-produces-application-files-myapp-someversionnumber-how-to-ge

The answer was, You have to update both Assembly Version AND File version manually

Shouldn't the version number increment each time I publish? Why should I do it manually? Is this is a conscious decision by MS to do it this way? What's the thinking behind having people manually update their own version number?

Answer 1

So two or more developers can publish their code under the same version.

Answer 2

You could always use the "Build Version Increment" open source add-on for visual studio to do it for you.