title: Storing source files outside project file directory in Visual Studio C++ 2009
body: <p>Visual Studio projects assumes all files belonging to the project are situated in the same directory as the project file, or one underneath it.</p>
  
  <p>For a particular project (in the non-Visual Studio sense) this is not what I want. I want to store the MSVC-specific files in another folder, because there might be other ways to build the application as well, for example with SCons. Also all the stuff MSVC splurts out clutters the source directory.</p>
  
  <p>Example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/source
  /scons
  /msvc &lt;- here is where I want my MSVC-specific stuff
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can add the files, in Explorer, to the <code>source</code> directory manually, and then link them in Visual Studio with the project. It's not the end of the world, but it annoys me a bit that Visual Studio tries to dictate the folder structure of my project.</p>
  
  <p>I was looking through the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2208a1f2.aspx" rel="noreferrer">schemas</a> for the project files but realized that this annoying assumption is in the IDE and not the format of the project files.</p>
  
  <p>Do someone know a neater way to solve this than manually linking files to the project from the <code>source</code> directory?</p>