How to reference Microsoft.Solver.Foundation in vs12?

Question

I'm trying to add Solver Foundation to a project I'm working on in Visual Studio 2012, but I can't find it in the list.

I opened one of the example projects, and the reference is Microsoft.Solver.Foundation however I tried searching Microsoft.S on all of the available lists, in my project, and it didn't come up.

How do I get Solver Foundation into my project?

Answer 1

I've just installed VS 2012 on my computer. I also have VS 2010 installed. I've re-installed Solver Foundation, but still no such project type in VS 2012 (unlike VS 2010). I would also like to know how to add this project type to the templates in VS 2012.

However, this might help you: it is enough to add the reference in your project to the Microsoft.Solver.Foundation.dll. The location might be:

C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\ .NETFramework\v4.0\Microsoft.Solver.Foundation.dll

if your Framework version was 4.0 before installing VS 2012.

Answer 2

The Microsoft.Solver.Foundation assembly is primarily targeted at .NET 4 and is thus included in the .NET 4 reference assemblies, as is also indicated by MSt:s answer.

This means that if you create a project that targets .NET 4.0, the Microsoft.Solver.Foundation assembly will show up in the Assemblies / Framework list when you are adding a new reference in Visual Studio 2012.

On the other hand, the MSF assembly will not show up if your project is targeting .NET 4.5. If you are targeting .NET 4.5, you will instead need to browse to the assembly manually, typically to the path that MSt has pointed out already, i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.0.