Visual Studio clean solution doesn't delete all dlls / project reference getting moved

Question

I have a VS 2008 C# web app with a bunch of project references to custom dlls. These are all at a relative path from the web project. Recently I've noticed that Clean Solution removes some, but not all, of the dlls from the web app's bin\\debug folder. For example:

<Reference Include="TowerCo.Utilities, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
  <SpecificVersion>False</SpecificVersion>
  <HintPath>..\..\Components\TowerCo.Utilities\bin\Debug\TowerCo.Utilities.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>
<Reference Include="TowerCo.WebControls, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
  <SpecificVersion>False</SpecificVersion>
  <HintPath>..\..\Components\TowerCo.WebControls\bin\Debug\TowerCo.WebControls.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>

The first one works normally (clean cleans it, new versions copied to web project on rebuild) but the second does not. A side effect is that I don't automatically pick up changes to the dependency.

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

It only seems to delete files it 'knows about'.

For instance old library files, and old references after having renamed projects are still there. Very strange. I always assumed 'Clean' was just a straightforward delete - and I don't quite understand why it isn't. Go in and check each folder by hand if in doubt.

Answer 2

Sometime VS doesn't pick the latest dll if the version is same. Try changing your version in AssemblyInfo.cs and it should work.

In past, I faced the same issue when I was relying on size/timestamp but I later realized that by changing the version, Studio removes the older DLLs and copies the new DLLs.