---
title: "Sharing ASP.NET user controls accross projects"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/22/sharing-aspnet-user-controls-accross-projects.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/22/sharing-aspnet-user-controls-accross-projects.html"
published: "2003-09-22T04:18:00"
updated: "2003-09-22T04:18:00"
tags: ["Cool Articles"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "We recently published a How-To on support.microsoft.com for how to share user controls across projects. In talking with customers, one of the things they would like to do is have a common set of reusable web UI, say a…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Sharing ASP.NET user controls accross projects

By Roy Osherove September 22, 2003 In [Cool Articles](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-articles)

**Historical article** · Originally published September 22, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

_We recently published a How-To on_ [_support.microsoft.com_](http://support.microsoft.com/) _for how to share user controls across projects.  In talking with customers, one of the things they would like to do is have a common set of reusable web UI, say a navigation bar, across multiple Visual Studio projects.  The problem is that there hasn't been an easy way to do this, and creating a server control seems like a lot of work for something so simple.  To help make this easier,_ [_this article_](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q324785) _gives step-by-step instructions for creating a virtual directory for common user controls that can be reused in multiple Visual Studio projects._

\[[Dan Fernandez](http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/danielfe/permalink.aspx/4511cf72-57d7-4b18-88f7-1cb468ca252f)\]

## More in Cool Articles

[All posts in Cool Articles](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-articles)

- Sep 22, 2003

    ### [Checklist: Securing ASP.NET](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/22/checklist-securing-aspnet.html)

- Sep 22, 2003

    ### [HOW TO: Encrypt the settings in your web.config](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/22/how-to-encrypt-the-settings-in-your-webconfig.html)

- Sep 21, 2003

    ### [\[Article\] Introduction to Test-driven development with NUnit and the NUnit-Add-in](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/21/article-introduction-to-test-driven-development-with-nunit-a.html)

- Sep 21, 2003

    ### [Asp.Net error handling](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/21/aspnet-error-handling.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### Contact

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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/