Copying winforms between projects in Visual Studio

To copy a form from one VS2013 project to another, the easiest, (fewest mouse clicks) is:

1. In your target project, right mouse click on your parent folder (likely your project) and in the menu select, "Add; Existing Item".

2. Then select the form's cs file in your source project. For example select Form.cs (not the Form.Designer.cs or Form.resx).

3. Open Form.cs in your target project and change the namespace (all instances).

4. Close and reopen Form.cs and you will see all the controls, etc.

Figured it out - knew it would be something daft.

Apparently the target project should have the references:

• System.Windows.Forms
• System.Drawing

included within the project FIRST before you do any copy or pasting or else you will get the problem I described.

Thanks for anyone who tried to help BTW.

1. Copy the three files, .cs, .designer, resx to the target solution folder.
2. In the target project, select Add existing item and add the designer file first.
3. Modify the Namespace attribute. The .cs file should come in as well.
4. Modify the namespace in the .cs file.
5. Add the resx file using Add existing item.