Exclude files from web site publish in Visual Studio

Question

Can I exclude a folder or files when I publish a web site in Visual Studio 2005? I have various resources that I want to keep at hand in the Solution Explorer, such as alte

Answer 1

In Visual Studio 2013 I found Keith's answer, adding the ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment element to the project file, didn't work (I hadn't read Brian Ogden's answer which says this). However, I found I could exclude a text file when publishing in Visual Studio 2013 by just setting the following properties on the text file itself:

1) Build Action: None

2) Copy to Output Directory: Do not copy

Initially I tried setting the Copy to Output Directory property by itself but that didn't work when the Build Action was set to the default value, Content. When I then set the Build Action to None the text file was no longer copied to the destination folder when I published.

To view these properties in the Visual Studio GUI, in the Solution Explorer right-click on the file you want to exclude and select Properties from the context menu.