Managing referenced binaries -- where did they go?

[jessek]

OK, this one's got me stumped:

I have a VB.NET class library, "myUtils", which references the Microsoft Enterprise Library dll's. I open it from source control in VS, compile it, no problem.

Now I make a new solution -- a website. I use "add project from source control" to add myUtils to this website, then choose "add reference" -> "project" -> myUtils so my website can use the functions in myUtils.

I try to compile, but now VS can't find the Enterprise Library DLL's for myUtils. Where did they go?

I make another new solution -- a windows forms app. I add myUtils to the solution, try to compile, same problem. All my references to the Enterprise Library DLL's are lost.

Every project in my repository references these same Enterprise Library DLL's. I'd like to just have one copy of them in the repository, so that when a new version is available, I only have to update in one place -- but that's a nice-to-have, right now I'm just trying to get my stuff to compile.

Installing the dll's in the GAC is not an option.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!

[lbauer]

What version of Visual Studio are you using?

What happens if you reference the projects without any of them being in source control?

For example, assuming you have your VB.Net project on local disk, create a new solution and choose "add existing project" and include the VB.Net project from your local disk. Can you now compile?

[jessek]

Visual Studio 2005 Standard.

The problem seems to be the solution files -- they're definitely not working the way I expected them to, they must be set up wrong.

When I check out a solution that has two projects, only one of the projects gets downloaded. So I have to go choose "Add Project From Source Control" to add the second one. Then I check the solution in, which you'd think would fix the problem -- but it doesn't.

Maybe that's related to the reason that the references to the binaries keep getting messed up?

[tothm]

We include all enterprise libraries as project into our solutions (the enterprise library projects are also source controlled)
Maybe that's an option.