Using Xpath With Default Namespace in C#

First - you don't need a navigator; SelectNodes / SelectSingleNode should suffice.

You may, however, need a namespace-manager - for example:

XmlElement el = ...; //TODO
XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(
    el.OwnerDocument.NameTable);
nsmgr.AddNamespace("x", el.OwnerDocument.DocumentElement.NamespaceURI);
var nodes = el.SelectNodes(@"/x:outerelement/x:innerelement", nsmgr);

You might want to try an XPath Visualizer tool to help you through.

XPathVisualizer is free, easy to use.

IMPORTANT: If you are using Windows 7/8 and don't see File, Edit and Help Menu items, please press ALT key.

For anyone looking for a quick hack solution, especially in those cases where you know the XML and don't need to worry about namespaces and all that, you can get around this annoying little "feature" by simply reading the file to a string and replacing the offensive attribute:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
string fileData = File.ReadAllText(fileName);
fileData = fileData.Replace(" xmlns=\"", " whocares=\"");
using (StringReader sr = new StringReader(fileData))
{
   doc.Load(sr);
}

XmlNodeList nodeList = doc.SelectNodes("project/property");

I find this easier than all the other non-sense requiring a prefix for a default namespace when I'm dealing with a single file. Hope this helps.