Hi,

 We have some odd behavior in our web application.  We are using vs 2008 with vss 2005, there are 3 people working on the project at any given time.  The problem is with some of the references in our project.  When one of the developers adds the reference, and saves the project then checks it in and the next developer gets the latest version from source safe that reference now fails in their project.  The location of the reference is in the exact same place on their pc.

 How can we stop this from happening?

 thanks.

Instead of adding a "reference" navigate to the .dll and add it to the bin in your project source safe.

I currently don't include the bin folder as part of the project build, as such it doesn't get written to source safe either.  I'll give your suggestion a try and see how it goes.

 thanks!
 

Well frost if the added reference  is to a GAC installed dll and all the users have the same dll installed in the GAC then it should be fine. Else you can use the approach shawn mentioned or else add the referenced dll to a common location say a file share and all the users can add the reference to that common location

frost:

I currently don't include the bin folder as part of the project build, as such it doesn't get written to source safe either.  I'll give your suggestion a try and see how it goes.

An alternative to included the bin folder is to create an "ExternalComponents" folder (sibling or similar to your solution's folder). Place all external dependencies that are not part of the solution and not part of the core platform (i.e. .NET / Windows) here. Projects then reference into that folder.

When you outgrow VSS to something better, you can looking at branching of External Dependencies along with your solutions when you release to allow new development work on newer versions of those components (while support continues with what you released).