Visual Studio 2008 ordering fail

Something I’ve just noticed is that Visual Studio falls far, far short when it comes to solution ordering.

Not only does it fail in an utterly abject fashion due to ordering things in an arbitrary fashion, but it doesn’t even allow you to drag things around and order them manually. The end result is a frustrating experience, especially when you’re trying to make your solution neat, tidy and easily browsable.

I don’t understand why this is the case, because when you move projects around they are ordered alphabetically just fine. Save, close and then re-open the solution and your projects will lose most of their ordering.

It’s akin to raking leaves into a neat pile then sitting back to admire your handy-work, only for Steve Ballmer to crash through your garden face, scrape the rake across your shins and then kick leaves in your face while bellowing “WOOOOOOO YEAH!”.

Well not really, but still. It’s annoying.

Success

Here’s one I just created. It looks grand. Everything is ordered just as it should be.

Success!

Failure

Here’s the same solution after it has been closed and re-opened.

Fail!

The ordering is FUBAR. There’s an issue on Microsoft’s VS product feedback page about this and it was duly ignored by the looks of things :(

How can something so simple not just, well, work? Anyone know of any workarounds to enforce ordering?