Error loading SSRS Report Project in VS2005: "Could not load file or assembly 'ReportingServicesLibrary, Version=9.0.242.0"

I had this problem and "Google'ing" it turned up nothing relevant.  So obviously this is prime material for blogging about it...

The background is that I returned to a client I had previously consulted for after a couple months.  They had deleted and added an account for me on their domain - so I when I logged into the Virtual PC I use for their domain - Windows considered it a new account (I think this may have had something to do with the problem but who knows).  I had used that VPC for over two years - and had installed various different editions of Visual Studio 2005 over that period.

I'm working on migrating their applications from VSS (and a custom-baked build system) to Team Foundation Server and my last project is for their SSRS projects.  But every single report I tried loading gave me a couple of errors.  This happened whether I opened the solution or the Report Project (*.rptproj)  First I got the error: "Project item '#item°#' does not represent a file. " That workaround was to manually edit the rprtproj and remove the "<State"> element.  I also so entries complaining that the *.user files should not be checked into version control - (which they were) - so I deleted those as well...

 But when I cleared those errors - I started getting the ""Could not load file or assembly 'ReportingServicesLibrary, Version=9.0.242.0" error.  I was stumped - and tried to look around for solutions.  I contacted the Release Manager (who I report to) to discuss it - in a previous position - she had developed quite a few of those reports- who suggested if when I do a "New Project" wizard - if the templates for "Business Intelligence Projects" was an option - and it wasn't!  Somehow that package got corrupt in my install of VS 2005. 

I have a good idea that it happened when "mucking around" in the "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies" directory - but that's another story...

I found some google posts on some fixes - but nothing worked - until I went to the extreme measure of COMPLETELY uninstalling ALL of Visual Studio 2005.  I then had to completely uninstall ALL of SQL Server 2005.  Then I had to reinstall everything.  This was no small task - but it did finally work in the end.