Which projects in my solution are using a project reference for a certain project?

A feature in Visual Studio exists for this. Right-click on your solution and click "Project Dependencies". Select the project that you want to find which other projects depend on it in the "Projects:" drop down list. Any projects that depend on the selected project will be unchecked and grayed out enter image description here because checking them enter image description here would cause a circular dependency.


If you want to find out which projects use Project A as a project reference, the easiest way I've found is:

  • Do a "Clean" on Project A
  • Unload Project A
  • Rebuild the solution

You can determine which projects use Project A as a Project reference by examining which projects fail to build successfully at this point.


The best way I know is to use ... Notepad++'s feature "Find in files".

You just put the name of the project that you want to find in "Find what:" field, filter on "*.csproj" and search in folder that contains your repository.

It is very fast and lets you find projects that reference this project not only in one solution but also in other solutions in the same folder if you have any.