Visual-studio – How to prevent Visual Studio 2013 from closing the IIS Express app when I end debugging

TFS users: If you are using source control that requires you to warn it before your rename files/folders then look at this answer instead which covers the extra steps required.

To rename a project's folder, file (.*proj) and display name in Visual Studio:

• Close the solution.
• Rename the folder(s) outside Visual Studio. (Rename in TFS if using source control)
• Open the solution, ignoring the warnings (answer "no" if asked to load a project from source control).
• Go through all the unavailable projects and...
  • Open the properties window for the project (highlight the project and press Alt+Enter or F4, or right-click > properties).
  • Set the property 'File Path' to the new location.
    • If the property is not editable (as in Visual Studio 2012), then open the .sln file directly in another editor such as Notepad++ and update the paths there instead. (You may need to check-out the solution first in TFS, etc.)
  • Reload the project - right-click > reload project.
  • Change the display name of the project, by highlighting it and pressing F2, or right-click > rename.

Note: Other suggested solutions that involve removing and then re-adding the project to the solution will break project references.

If you perform these steps then you might also consider renaming the following to match:

1. Assembly
2. Default/Root Namespace
3. Namespace of existing files (use the refactor tools in Visual Studio or ReSharper's inconsistent namespaces tool)

Also consider modifying the values of the following assembly attributes:

1. AssemblyProductAttribute
2. AssemblyDescriptionAttribute
3. AssemblyTitleAttribute

If you run without debugging (Ctrl+F5) then by default it prompts your to press return to close the window. If you want to use the debugger, you should put a breakpoint on the last line.