Referencing AppFabric Assemblies in Visual Studio on x64 Systems

Adding a reference to a project in Visual Studio should be a fairly simple thing to do.  Right?

Not always.  When working with Windows Server AppFabric you might have a problem if you’re using 64-bit Windows.  Many of the assemblies you use for AppFabric are located in the %WinDir%\System32\AppFabric directory. Unfortunately, this directory is not visible when using the “Add Reference” dialog in Visual Studio.

See? No AppFabric folder…

Fortunately, there’s a work-around. Instead of drilling down to System32, just open up the Add Reference dialog, click on Browse and type or paste %WinDir%\SysNative\AppFabric into the File Name box and type a back-slash (“\”) at the end. You’ll then see a full list of files in the directory.

Just select the assembly you need to reference from the list.