Home » Losing my solution : Visual Studio 2005 Professional does not show the solution by default

  • Losing my solution : Visual Studio 2005 Professional does not show the solution by default

    Losing my solution : Visual Studio 2005 Professional does not show the solution by default

    As we found out today, the default settings for Visual Studio 2005 Professional are to not show the solution by default. This means that as soon as you add a project to a blank solution, the solution disappears and you are unable to add another project.


    This is easy to fix though:


    Make sure that you have the option to “Always show solution” set in your IDE. To do this, goto tools->options->Projects and Solution and check the “Always show solution” option.


    I don’t understand though, that this is a default setting… wo could possibly live in the Professional environment with only one project per solution?? For an express edition, I could imagine this to be useful.. but otherwise, No!

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30 comments

  1. Thanks, I used VS 2005 for the first time today and this was the first problem I had

    Charles Perry

  2. awesome. i knew i wasn’t loosing my mind. somehow i had five projects in one solution, rebooted, and then i could only open one at a time when i opened the solution again. thanks!!

    jeremy

  3. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Why wouldn’t you default it to always show… typical of Microsoft to make a dumb decision like that.

    DogMan

  4. I’m glad I found this page because I was losing it too. 🙂

    Dave

  5. Man, I was about to re-install Visual Studio… I would think that would be checked by default.

    Adrian

  6. Gr8. I was surprized, how to add more projects in my web solution. This was really helpful in viewing the solution in the solution explorer.

    Gaurav

  7. I couldn’t find the “Project and Solution” section for the longest time. Then, I saw the little checkbox, tucked away at the bottom, that says “Show all settings”. So by default, you can’t even see the “Project and Solution” settings.

    Ray

  8. This drove me insane for about half an hour. Thank you so much!

    Jim

  9. hi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I was also facing the same problem…
    this shud not be the deafault setting…. its really dumb thing I have ever seen
    …

    thanx a lot for sharing information,….

    Shekhar- INIQUUS- PUNE

  10. Thank you!! I thought I was going crazy.

    DirtyWhiteBoy

  11. i developed a database using ASP.NET and SQL. whenever i open my default file it takes different local host number. how to stop this?

    s.suresh

  12. Thanks, this helped me to fix my problem.

    Vikram

  13. Thanks, great to find your post. I was wondering how much time it will take to fix this issue , using google, 2 minutes only.

    Cheers
    A

    Ajay

  14. Thanks. Exelent tip!

    Max

  15. At least you can open your solution. After installing VS2005 SP1 on Vista 32,
    I can’t open the solution files! I’ve deleted the sou to no avail.
    I haven’t tried rebooting but this is after I booted up in the morning. How buggy.

    pickedaname

  16. great….I had a DLL project , and had a separate project for debugging. Now they are in one solution. Thanks a lot.

    kenboo

  17. Thank you. I was playing with it and it drived me crazy. Why Microsot did anything like that. STUPID!!!
    Thank you so much!

    Petr

  18. Out of the box thinking if this was not a default setting. Did someone say productivity??

    Harsa

  19. Thanks by the info, simple but useful.

    Nahuel

  20. Thank you!

    One of the stupidest “features” I’ve ever seen.
    Why would one ever want to NOT show the solution, and so hide the other projects??
    I want 40 mins of my life back.

    Vlad

  21. Thanks for posting this. I was just trying hook up multiple projects in a solution like I had done in VS 2003. I would say that it is pretty bone headed of Microsoft to hide this option. I’m glad I used solutions in VS 2003, otherwise I may have thought that one project was the best we could hope for.

    Katherine

  22. thanks buddy…this one made me go crazy….thanks for the info

    Guru Syntel

  23. Hero!

    Agree with the sentiments about the default setting being to not show the solution structure. As Bill Gates might say, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

    James Collett

  24. Thanks! This tip is still useful for VS2008 too!

    Ted

  25. Thanks for a quick tip.

    Jakub

  26. Thank Raimond. Just discovered your explaination. I agree with others who’ve suggested this is one of the dumbest changes every in a Microsoft product. You have to wonder what moron in Redmond approved hiding the solution as the default?

    mikeg3

  27. Thanks Raimond, fixed the problem in no time with this tip.
    – Wouter from Unive

    Wouter

  28. Grr. I just had the same problem.. knew there had to be a setting somewhere.. was about to re-install thinking surely it wouldnt be set like that by default.

    Rob

  29. Thanks

    Ranish.P

  30. Great!!! It works….

    Deepu Nair

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