Why is System.Web.Mvc not listed in Add References?

Question

Best way is to use NuGet package manager.

Just update the below MVC package and it should work.

In VS Express 2012 I couldn't find System.Web.Mvc in the "assemblies" tab, but after a bit of searching I found out that I need to look into "assemblies\extensions" tab rather than the default "assemblies\framework" tab.

I had the same issue and wasn't able to locate the System.Web.MVC reference assembly.

Finally found out and it was located inside the following location.

Note if your VS was installed in C: (Sometimes the MVC.dll is not in the default location which everybody talk about, i mean the "Reference Assemblies" folder located in the C: drive.)

if its not there, it should definitely be in here:

\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET MVC 2\Assemblies\System.Web.Mvc.dll

So add the dll through navigating or the browse tab in the add reference menu.

You can also add this from the Nuget Package Manager Console, something like:

Install-Package Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc -Version 4.0.20710.0 -ProjectName XXXXX

Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc has dependencies on:

• 'Microsoft.AspNet.WebPages (≥ 2.0.20710.0 && < 2.1)'
• 'Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure (≥ 1.0.0.0)'
• 'Microsoft.AspNet.Razor (≥ 2.0.20710.0 && < 2.1)'

...which seems like no biggie to me. In our case, this is a class library that exists solely to provide support for our Mvc apps. So, we figure it's a benign dependency at worst.

I definitely prefer this to pointing to an assembly on the file system or in the GAC, since updating the package in the future will likely be a lot less painful than experiences I've had with the GAC and file system assembly references in the past.