How do I “Add Existing Item” an entire directory structure in Visual Studio?

Question

I have a free standing set of files not affiliated with any C# project at all that reside in a complicated nested directory structure.

I want to add them in that for

Answer 1

The cleanest way that I've found to do this is to create a new Class Library project in the target folder, and redirect all of its build output elsewhere. It still leaves a .csproj file sitting in that folder, but it does let you see it in Visual Studio and pick which files to include in your project.