IDE Error removing reference in Visual Studio 2008

Question

When I remove a reference to a project in Visual Studio 2008 I receive the following error message in a dialog box:

Attempting to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

Once I click "OK" to exit the message box, Visual Studio shuts down completely. I'm running Visual Studio on a Windows 7(x64) machine.

How do I stop this from happening?

Answer 1

This is a hack but you might try removing the reference by editing the project file or solution file with a text editor and then open the project again. Be sure to backup first.

Look for <ProjectReference Include=" or <Reference Include=" in the project file and remove the one you need to get ride of.

Look for Project ... EndProject in the solution file