When working with Visual Studio and adding a reference to a project you are presented a window with multiple tabs; .NET, Project, Recent, and Browse. What is needed to get an item listed under the .NET listing?
We have items in the GAC which we thought would get them listed there, but they are not. We are looking for methods to be able to get more consistent reference paths for assemblies in our applications across a very large development team.
You need to make a registry entry to tell Visual Studio which folders to show assemblies for. This article explains how to do it:
http://www.platinumbay.com/blogs/dotneticated/archive/2008/09/02/add-reference-and-the-gac.aspx
We don't use the GAC anymore as it is a cumbersome process that wasn't giving benefit to our team members. We solve the consistent path issues using project references for our own assemblies. Third party assemblies go in a folder within the solution and we reference the assemblies in the projects from there. This way everyone has them in the same path with no worries.