Multiple MVC3 projects in one solution

I'm about to start a new project which would allow users to navigate through different mvc3 web applications that we have created. The way it is now, each website is independent from each other requiring users to log in each site.

The idea is to merge them all under one big site where they would log into once and would have user settings, preferences and be able to navigate between one another via navigation tabs at the top, etc...

My problem this far has been finding a solution that would allow us to dump all our projects into one giant one and manage them individually while still being within the main project.

I know I can add multiple projects to one solution, but is it possible to rather have multiple projects inside one project? If I were to setup a project as the "StartUp" project, I haven't found how to reference the other projects, for example from Html.ActionLink for the tabs.

I've just found about the MVC Areas, and I've 开发者_JAVA百科tried this seems to be doing pretty much what I want. I would have to modify a few things but it work. However, I'm worried about the size of the individual project once we implement all our sites inside.

Thanks!

If those applications will be hosted on the same domain (for example app1.example.com, app2.example.com, ... or example.com/app1, example.com/app2, ...) you could keep them as separate solutions in VS and implement Single Sign On. If they share the same users database user preferences will be shared among all applications and if a user authenticates on one application he will automatically be authenticated on the others.