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

It has been a while since this was originally posted, but here is an alternative answer. If you only care to be able to look at the physical files from inside visual studio and do not necessarily require to see them in the solution explorer default view, then click on the switch view button and choose the folder view and any physical directory/directories that are under your solution root folder will appear here even if they do not appear in the solution explorer default view.

If however, you want to add a folder tree that isn't too large as a virtual solution directory/directories to match your existing tree structure, do that and and then "add the existing" physical files to the virtual directory/directories. If the physical directory exists in your solution directory it will not copy the files - it will link directly to the physical files but they will appear as part of the solution virtual directories.