Proper way to rename solution (and directories) in Visual Studio

Question

I have a rather involved Visual Studio solution (2010, but it shouldn't matter) that I need to rename.

I want to rename the folders to match the new solution name, but I can't figure out a way to refactor the folder names automatically, and going through every single project file will be painful.

Is there an official way to do this? Alternatively (and much less preferably), are there free tools to accomplish this?

Answer 1

Manually edit .sln file

This method is entirely aimed at renaming the directory for the project, as viewed in Windows Explorer.

This method does not suffer from the problems in the Remove/add project file method below (references disappearing), but it can result in problems if your project is under source control (see notes below). This is why step 2 (backup) is so important.

1. Close Visual Studio.
2. Create a backup of your .sln file (you can always roll back).
3. Imagine you want to rename directory Project1 to Project2.
4. If not using source control, rename the folder from Project1 to Project2 using Windows Explorer.
5. If using source control, rename the folder from Project1 to Project2 using the functions supplied by source control. This preserves the history of the file. For example, with TortoiseSVN, right click on the file, select TortoiseSVN .. Rename.
6. In the .sln file, edit all instances of Project1 to be Project2, using a text editor like NotePad.
7. Restart Visual Studio, and everything will work as before, but with the project in a different directory.

You can also see renaming solution manually or post which describes this manual process.

Advantages

• You can make the directory within Windows Explorer match the project name within the solution.
• This method does not remove any references from other projects to this file (an advantage over the Remove/add project file method, see my other answer below).

Warnings

• It's important to back everything up into a .zip file before renaming anything, as this method can create issues with source control.
• If your project is under source control, it may create issues if you rename files or directories outside of source control (using Windows Explorer). Its preferable to rename the file using the source control framework itself, if you can, to preserve the history of that file (check out the context menu on a right click - it may have a function to rename the file).

Update 2014-11-02

ReSharper has added an automated method for achieving the same result as the manual method above. If the namespace is underlined with a squiggly blue line, click on the action pyramid icon to either:

• Rename the namespace to match the directory name in Windows Explorer, or;
• Rename the directory in Windows Explorer to match the namespace.

In the second case, the final word defines the new directory name in Windows Explorer, e.g. if we changed the namespace to ViewModel2, it would offer to move the file to folder ViewModel2.

However, this will not necessarily update files in source control, so you may still have to use the manual method.

Update 2018-01-31

Tested with Visual Studio 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017 Update 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Update 2020-05-02

Tested with Visual Studio 2019.

Answer 2

To rename a solution:

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project, select Rename, and enter a new name.

2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and select Properties. On the Application tab, change the "Assembly name" and "Default namespace".

3. In the main cs file (or any other code files), rename the namespace declaration to use the new name. For this right-click the namespace and select Refactor > Rename enter a new name. For example: namespace WindowsFormsApplication1

4. Change the AssemblyTitle and AssemblyProduct in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs.

   [assembly: AssemblyTitle("New Name Here")]
   [assembly: AssemblyDescription("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyCompany("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyProduct("New Name Here")]
   [assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright ©  2013")]
   [assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
   [assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]
   

5. Delete bin and obj directories physically.

6. Rename the project physical folder directory.

7. Open the SLN file (within notepad or any editor) and change the path to the project.

8. Clean and Rebuild the project.

Answer 3

The Rename operations in Visual Studio only change the filename, i.e. *.prj for a project, and *.sln for a solution. You will need to rename folders separately using the filesystem, and you will need to remove and re-add the projects since they will have new folder names. However, note that the solution and project files are respectively text and xml files. You could write your own program that parses them and renames both the folder names, filenames, and fixes the project/solution files internally.

Answer 4

You can also export template and then create a new project from the exported template changing the name as you prefer

Answer 5

Below is a step-by-step way of renaming your entire solution in Visual Studio 2013

Assuming we're changing a project named "HelloWorld.ui" to "Section1to5.ui"

1. Go to solution explorer (screenshot below), right click on the project that you wish to rename and select "Rename". Enter the new name that you desire.

2. Right click on the Project that you have just renamed, and click on "Properties". Under the Application tab, change the "Assembly name" and "Default namespace".

3. In the main Program.cs file (or any other code files that you may have created), rename the namespace declaration to use the new name. For this right-click the namespace and select Refactor > Rename enter a new name. For example:

   namespace HelloWorld.ui ----> namespace Section1to5.ui

4. Next, expand the "Properties" and double click on AssemblyInfo.cs file. You will notice the below code fragment:

[assembly: AssemblyTitle("HelloWorld.ui")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("")]
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCompany("Microsoft")]
[assembly: AssemblyProduct("HelloWorld.ui")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © Microsoft 2015")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]

You need to change the AssemblyTitle and AssemblyProduct in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs to the new name, in this example from "HelloWorld.ui" to "Section1to5.ui". Once you're done changing the name, save and close Visual Studio.

5. In the project directory, go inside the folder "HelloWorld.ui" and delete the "bin" and "obj" directories.

6. Once you're done, rename the folder "HelloWorld.ui" to the new project name.

7. Open the renamed solutions file with a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++ and edit the following line:

   Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "HelloWorld.ui", "HelloWorld.ui\HelloWorld.ui.csproj", "{39FC65A3-3AE7-4EC9-B8F7-74F971636C70}"

Replace all the instances of "HelloWorld.ui" the new name that you've selected for your project, in this case "Section1to5.ui". This changes the path of the project to the renamed directory in step 6.

8. Open the solutions file with visual studio, and clean and rebuild the project.

9. You may notice that the "Debug/Run" button has been replaced by the "Attach" button. If this happens, simply right click on the project and choose the "Set as StartUp project" option. Alternatively, click on Tools>Customize>Commands>Add command>Debug and add the button.

You're done renaming the project, if you have any doubts feel free to post and I'd be glad to help out!

Answer 6

Delete your bin and obj subfolders to remove a load of incorrect reference then use windows to search for old name.

Edit any code or xml files found and rebuild, should be ok now.

Answer 7

Remove/add project file method

This method is entirely aimed at renaming the directory for the project, as viewed in Windows Explorer.

1. Backup your entire project using something like GIT, SVN, or WinZip (important!).
2. Within the solution in Visual Studio, remove the project.
3. Rename the directory in Windows Explorer.
4. Add the project back in again within Visual Studio.

Advantages

• You can make the directory within Windows Explorer match the project name within the solution.

Disadvantages

• If you remove a library, it removes any references to the said library from other projects. The solution may not compile after this until you add the references to said library back in (this is quite easy). This is the reason why step 1 (backup) is so important.
• If you have source control, you will lose the history of the file.

Right-clicking on a project and selecting "Open Folder in Windows Explorer" is useful to keep track of where the project is stored while you are performing this process.

Answer 8

2021 Update:

renameproject made this effortless. A simple CLI tool to use, it even creates a git commit on success.

https://github.com/ModernRonin/ProjectRenamer

---

Old answer:

I've used the Visual Studio extension "Full Rename Project" to successfully rename projects in an ASP.NET Core 2 solution.

I used ReSharper then to adjust the namespace (right click on project, refactor, adjust namespaces...)

https://github.com/kuanysh-nabiyev/RenameProjectVsExtension

Answer 9

Using the "Find in Files" function of Notepad++ worked fine for me (ctrl + H, Find in Files).

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.2.2.html

Answer 10

I tried the Visual Studio Project Renamer, but, it threw exceptions in the few cases where I tried it.

I have had good success with CopyWiz.

I am in no way affiliated with them, and I have not yet paid for it, but I may have to soon, as it is the only tool that seems to work for both my C# and C++ projects. I do hope they make a little money, and continue to improve it, though.

Answer 11

You can:

1. click file-> new ->create project from existing project

2. select your original file, eg. solution 1 and input the new file name solution 2

3. change the project name in the new solution 2

Answer 12

If you have problems with loading Shared projects, like Xamarin, remember to change reference to shared libs in csproj files. I developed a CocosSharp game and Droid/iOS/WP81 projects didn't want to load. I had to change the line below in every csproj file (Driod/iOS/WP81) which referenced Shared lib. That was caused because of folder names change, so replace YOUR_PREVIOUS_NAMESPACE with your new names of folders.

<Import Project="..\YOUR_PREVIOUS_NAMESPACE.Shared\EmptyProject.Shared.projitems" Label="Shared" />

Also, I noticed that for .Driod projects, assembly name in project properties cannot be changed using Visual Studio (I use 2015). I had to change assembly name manually in the .Droid.csproj file.

<AssemblyName>YourNameSpace</AssemblyName>

Then I loaded solution and in project properties view new name appeared. After rebuilding dll with that name was generated.

Answer 13

If you are Creating a Website in Visual Studio 2010. You can change the project name as follows.

Step 1: In Visual Studio 2010 the SLN file will be stored under project folder within Visual studio 2010 and Source files are stored under Website folder within Visual Studio 2010.

Step 2: Rename the folder by right click on that folder forward by Rename which contains your SLN project.

Step 3: Rename the SLN file name by right click on that SLN file forward by Rename.

Step 4: Rename the folder that contains Source of that SLN file under Website in Visual Studio 2010.

Step 5: Then finally Double click Your SLN file and change the root of your SLN source folder.

Answer 14

The only solution which works for me on Visual Studio 2013 in a WEB project:

Lets say I want to rename "project1" to be "project2". Lets say the physical path to my .sln file is: c:\my\path\project1\project1.sln

so the path to my .csproj file as well as the bin and the obj folders should be: c:\my\path\project1\project1\

1. Open the solution in VS by double clicking the project1.sln file.

2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project (NOT the solution!!!), select Rename, and enter a new name.

3. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and select Properties. On the Application tab, change the "Assembly name" and "Default namespace".

4. In the main CS file (or any other code files like Global.asax for example), rename the namespace declaration to use the new name. For this right-click the namespace and select Refactor > Rename enter a new name. For example:

namespace project1

4.1 In Solution Explorer, right-click the project (NOT the solution!!!), select Rename, and enter a new name.

5. Make sure: the AssemblyTitle and AssemblyProduct in Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs are set to the new name ("project2").

1 [assembly: AssemblyTitle("New Name Here")] 2 [assembly: AssemblyDescription("")] 3 [assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")] 4 [assembly: AssemblyCompany("")] 5 [assembly: AssemblyProduct("New Name Here")] 6 [assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © 2013")] 7 [assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")] 8 [assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]

6. Close the Visual Studio.

7. Delete bin and obj directories physically.

8. Rename the parent folder and the source folder to the new name (project2):

In the example: c:\my\path\project1\project1

will be: c:\my\path\project2\project2

9. Rename the SLN file name by right click on that SLN file forward by Rename.

10. Then finally open the SLN file (within notepad or any editor) and copy and replace (Ctrl+h) any old name to the new name.

11. Open VS and click BUILD -> Clean Solution

12. click Build -> Build solution and then F5 to run...

13. Note1: If you get something like this: Compilation Error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'project2' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Source File: c:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\78dd917f\d0836ce4\App_Web_index.cshtml.a8d08dba.b0mwjmih.0.cs

Then go to the "Temporary ASP.NET Files" folder and delete everything.

14. Note2: If you are trying to do "save as" to a new named project and to keep also the old one, consider duplicating your db by modifying the connectionStrings in web.config and also by re-starting migrations if you have one in the project.

Answer 15

I'm new to VS. I just had that same problem: Needed to rename an started project after a couple weeks work. This what I did and it worked.

1. Just in case, make a backup of your folder Project, although you won't be touching it, but just in case!
2. Create a new project and save it using the name you wish for your 'new' project, meaning the name you want to change your 'old' project to.
3. Build it. After that you'll have a Project with the name you wanted but that it does not anything at all but open a window (a Windows Form App in my case).
4. With the new proyect opened, click on Project->Add Existing Ítem and using Windows Explorer locate your 'old' folder Project and select all the files under ...Visual Studio xxx\Projects\oldApp\oldApp
5. Select all files in there (.vb, .resx) and add them to your 'new' Project (the one that should be already opened).
6. Almost last step would be to open your Project file using the Solution
   Explorer and in the 1st tab change the default startup form to the form it should be.
7. Rebuild everything.

Maybe more steps but less or no typing at all, just some mouse clicks. Hope it helps :)

Answer 16

I have followed https://gist.github.com/n3dst4/b932117f3453cc6c56be link and I was able to renamed my entire solution successfully.

Answer 17

along with answer of this link

https://stackoverflow.com/a/19844531/6767365

rename these files. I renamed my project to MvcMovie and it works fine

Answer 18

To rename a website:

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Blogs/46334/rename-website-project-in-visual-studio-2013.aspx

locate and edit IISExpress's applicationhost.config, found here: C:\Users{username}\Documents\IISExpress\config