Maybe, there is a difference in Visual Studio 2005 and what I am using, Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition.
At the top of Solution Explorer, just below the words"Solution Explorer" there is a Button Bar with 5 buttons on it.  The first
one is, (looking left to right), Properties, the second one is "Show All Files", the third one is "Refresh", the forth one is
"View Code" and the fifth one is "View Designer".
If you click on the "Show All Files" button, one time it will show,( in the box below, your project's name
or My Project and the form's name ( example, Form1.vb). If you click on it again, (it will be pressed in appearance) it will
show, My Project, References, bin, obj, and form(s).vb .  Clicking on the + mark by the References should expand the tree view
where you can select the reference you want to remove. Then, click on the reference you want to remove (right click) and select
REMOVE from the context menu. And the reference will be gone. The names of the individual buttons only show up when you hover
the mouse pointer over each button, there is no text under the buttons, just images on the buttons.
If this doesn't work, I would think there is a setting in Options, under the Tools Menu to show all the
buttons on Solution Explorer. As I said, I only have VB2005 Express Edition right now, and not the full Visual Studio 2005. So,
things may be different.
Good luck.
james

Hi zino,

Do you mean the "References" node is missing from your project folder in
the Solution Explorer?

Can you use the menu command Project/Add References... to add a new
reference to your project, if it succeeds, does the "References" node
return back?

If the above workaround still doesn't work, I suggest you can modify the
corresponding project file manually--Just close your VS2005 IDE and open
the target project file(e.g. YourAppName.vbproj/csproj) in a text editor,
then navigate to the code block as the following:
..
 <ItemGroup>
   <Reference Include="System" />
   ...
   <Reference Include="System.Windows.Forms" />
   
 </ItemGroup>
..

Find the duplicated the Reference Include code line and erase it, finally
save the project file.

Wish this helps!

Best regards,

Gary Chang
Microsoft Community Support
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