I believe the way it works is approximately this:

(1) you choose a project file somewhere, of whatever type
(2) VS has to put it in a solution. You can't work with a project outside of a solution.
(3) First it looks for a solution with the same base name as the project in the same folder.
(4) Then it tries the folder above.
(5) If that doesn't find one, it looks for a solution in the same folder that contains the project you chose, with any name.
(6) It probably tries the folder above again.
(7) If it finds such a solution, it opens it, and this opens your project too. If all this fails to find such a solution, it creates an unsaved one with
the same base name  and puts your project in it.

I haven't verified this is exactly right, but you get the idea.

In your case, the first project file is presumably in the folder below the solution, so VS finds it. However the web project is not in the same
folder or the folder below the solution, so VS doesn't find it.

This heuristic doesn't work so well for web projects, since typically they are located in a vroot somewhere else rather than under the
solution file. In fact, there is an annoying buglet in VS 2002 and VS 2003 related to this. If you do Open Project from Web, and navigate to
your web project, then pick a solution instead of a web project, it gives an error about it being in a bad format, rather than actually opening
the solution. This is lame; it's because it opens web projects in a different way to regular projects. It's a shame we didn't fix this in VS 2003. I
think the easiest way to work around all this is to keep the solution with your non-web project and always open that solution (or the non-web
project, which will open the solution).

The next version of VS should fix this.

Dan [ms]

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