How do I show the References folder in Solution Explorer without selecting 'Show All Files' in a VB.NET project?

Question

As I compare many C# example projects to my VB.NET projects, I see that the References folder shows in the Solution Explorer without having to select "Show All Files". Is it possible to have this for a VB.NET project as well? I find that it would be very helpful to have this folder displayed without having to see all the other hidden files as well.

I'm using VS2010 Professional.

This adds to my list of reasons why I should have learned C# first... thanks in advance to anyone that can either tell me how to make this happen, or to definitively crush my dream.

Solution 1

I guess I will have to definitively crush your dream. Sorry. It has been a decision by Microsoft to remove this from the default view to reduce the 'clutter'. However, your 'Show All Files' setting will persist when you save your project. So if you show all files once and then save, then it will always be on.

You can also see your References in the Project designer, which you can always keep open in a tab.

Solution 2

As of Visual Studio 2015, this behavior has been changed to show the References folder without selecting Show All Files.

From MSDN:

What’s new is the References node. This used to be hidden and you had to click Show All Files to see it—but that also showed lots of irrelevant files.

This previous behavior might have made sense 10 years ago when you’d start with a Windows Forms project and it would generally have the right set of references. But it’s a reality of modern development nowadays that the References node is used frequently—especially to manage NuGet references. It’s a small but handy convenience to be able to find it easily in Solution Explorer.