So, I was getting this error constantly at work and found the solution on the web. I’m reproducing here without permission so that I know it will exist where I can find it.

Original: Blogs – “Project not found” problem loading a Solution with a web services project in Visual Studio.NET 2003

  1. Copy the files from the Visual SourceSafe database to your local computer.
  2. Create the virtual directory for the web services project manually and point it to the desired directory. Configure the application & script execution settings (IIS) (no application name etc).
  3. Locate the <project>.vbproj file in IIS by clicking on the virtual directory and displaying the contents and delete it.
  4. Open VS.NET and open the solution from visual source safe.
  5. When prompted for the location of the web service project, select the virtual directory you have created for the web services project and hit OK.

Visual Studio will extract a new copy of the .vbproj file into the Virtual Directory and your solution should now work as expected.