C# visual studio how to relocate nuget package folder?

Question

I hired a contractor to do some coding for me. He setup nuget.config in the solution folder with the following repository path:

<configuration>
  <solution>
    <add key="disableSourceControlIntegration"
      value="true" />
  </solution>
  <config>
    <add key="repositoryPath"
      value="../lib" />
  </config>
</configuration>

And I'm not too happy about his decision: this will place the nuget package folder outside the solution folder. I can easily change the repository path, simply by setting:

value="../<mySolutionFolder>/lib" />

However when I do this a curious thing happens: every single reference that I use in my solution is now broken. And nothing that I change in the .csproj files or other *.config files will allow my projects to find their references.

The only workaround is to re-create each project in my solution by starting from scratch, and add->existing items, etc. and reference->manage nuget packages, and install every reference again.

I have many projects in my solution and performing this for every one is understandably time consuming.

I would like to know if there is an easy way?

It seems like there should be a way for Nuget and VS to play nicely so that I can easily move the repository folder to a different path location.

Answer 1

One way to fix the reference paths is to use the Package Manager Console.

From the Package Manager Console you can run the following command to reinstall the NuGet packages which will fix the hint paths for the references.

Update-Package -reinstall

This will reinstall all NuGet packages in the solution. I am assuming you have the code under source control so you can see what changes are made to the projects if you need to revert them after this reinstall.

There is more documentation on reinstalling NuGet packages on the NuGet documentation site.

Another way to fix this is to do a find and replace in the .csproj files to fix the hint path.