Visual Studio 2010 'Reference Paths' not working in project designer

I have recently transitioned from VS2008 to VS2010.

In VS2008, I could add a directory to the 'Reference Paths' section in the project designer, and could then subsequently add references to any assemblies in that directory to 开发者_如何学JAVAthe project by using the 'Add Reference' dialog.

In VS2010, I add a directory to the 'Reference Paths' section in the project designer, but when I open the 'Add Reference' dialog, none of the assemblies in the reference directory are on the list.

I can add the registry key

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft.NETFramework\<version>\AssemblyFoldersEx\MyAssemblies]@="<AssemblyLocation>",

which works as intended, allowing me to see the assemblies in the reference directory in the 'Add Reference' dialog. However, I do not want to do this - I should be able to use the project designer's 'Reference Paths' functionality.

Why is this happening, and what can be done?

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That has never been what reference paths are for.

After adding a reference using "Add Reference", you can set the reference paths as the set of folders to look in for those assemblies. For instance, you can add a reference to C:\Projects\Library\MyLibrary.dll, but then set the reference path to point to C:\Projects\MyLibrary\bin\Debug so that you can use the version of the library that you just built.