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?

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.