The option "Include in the project" is missing in the context menu of the folder in VS2010

Question

I am running VS2010 Pro SP1 (10.0.40219.1). I copied / pasted the folder into the solution folder in Windows Explorer, clicked the ghost button in VS Solution Solution so that I can now see the folder from VS by right-clicking on the folder, and the “Include in project” context menu item is missing.

I can manually include all the files in the directory tree, but a task examining this function once existed in my Visual Studio installation.

This solution is an MVC3 web application, but it looks like it happens with all solutions, console applications, etc.

Thanks in advance Ben

Answer 1

The menu selection should be in the top-level project menu.

If you have too few settings, you can also try resetting all the settings in the Tools → Import and Export ...

Answer 2

This works within the framework of the project, but not from the solution level. You can add folders at the solution level, but solution-level folders are not mapped to file system folders.

This will work if you have a project in the same folder. But you would include the “folder” in the project, not in the solution.

To add files from this folder, use Add> Existing Item. But the files you added this way will go to your Solution Items folder, which is probably not what you wanted to do. The Solution Items folder is simply mapped to the actual solution folder.