I was wondering how people handle dealing with references across multiple users across multiple computers. We have a small dev shop with only a few developers. We have an issue where reference locations/paths/web.config files get messed up each time a user gets the latest (we use TFS for source control) because the references are located in slightly different paths: c:\Dave\CommonBin versus c:\Joe\CommonBin . How do others handle this issue?
I was wondering how people handle dealing with references across multiple users across multiple
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Where are you actually doing development? Local boxes or on a shared box? If local boxes, there is no reason to have c:\Dave and c:\Joe ever show up. If you are on a shared box, you should examine if the methodology is correct, as shared environments == messy.
My methodology is to keep paths the same, relatively speaking. This means everyone uses the same structure, even if the root is not the same (i.e. absolute paths may be different, but the relative path from the .sln file is the same). This allows people to work under the VS 2010 project directory or under another folder (I use c:\projects).
For web work, you can apply this methodology and use the built in web server, but I find using IIS is a better option, as you get rid of some other issues that crop up when using the built in server. This means every developer has to set up IIS directories (not quite true, as Windows 7 with IIS will help your devs out), but either way this is not a huge step and it gets rid of tons of headaches.
If you get consistent, then you end up with conformity amongst the systems and avoid a lot of the issues you are now experiencing. To get there from here, you will have to temporarily bite the bullet and fix things.