Completely deleting Visual Studio website solution

Question

When I create a new website project in Visual Studio 2013, even after completely removing the directory in Visual Studio 2013/Projects and also Visual Studio 2013/Website, VS 2013 still thinks it exists. As a result, it appends an incrementing index to the end of the solution name:

How can I completely remove all traces of the solutions (like unloading a normal project)?

Answer 1

In addition to Jimmy's answer, sometimes when removing things between the elements in the applpicationhost.config file, I experience IISExpress issues. After hours of troubleshooting, renaming the applicationhost.config file or deleting it fixes that problem. Renaming or deleting the config file also fixes the problem stated in this question. (but be careful if you choose to delete it - make sure there's nothing you need in it)

Answer 2

In my case, i have to remove the old registrations in the file [applicationhost.config] in the folder [.vs\config].

Answer 3

The reason VS thinks the website still exists is because it's looking at the IIS Express applicationhost.config file.

In VS 2015

Visual Studio 2015 uses an applicationHost.config per solution. There is a a .vs folder in your solution. So the solution has a .vs\config\applicationhost.config file

Prior Versions

Look under %userprofile%\documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config. Your old website is still registered under IIS Express, so VS generates a unique name for the new one.