Why is System.Web.Mvc not listed in Add References?

Question

Using C#, Visual Studio 2010.

There is a namespace called System.Web.Mvc documented on MSDN. The documentation for all the types in that namespace says that they are in System.Web.Mvc.dll.

However, when I go to Add Reference, “.NET” tab, this assembly is missing from the list. Why?

Answer 1

The desired assembly has appeared in the list now.

I can only speculate what caused it to appear, but I suspect it is the fact that I went File → New → Project → ASP.NET Web Application, which I had never done before. It is possible that this caused some sort of late initialisation to happen and the list to be populated with additional assemblies for Web development.