MVC 4.0

I am writing this post as I contemplate re installing windows completely. Yes it is that kind of post, I have gone nearly 4 days without being able to do any actual work due to me "upgrading" to MVC 4.0.

So one of the features that was touted about upgrading to MVC 4.0 was that you would have no problem running older apps. Except according to Microsoft's known issues with MVC 4.0 it states the following;

Installing ASP.NET MVC 4  breaks ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM applications. 

Um last I checked that is not the same as runs with older apps no problem, as a matter of a fact it is the exact opposite.

So what kind of error did I see, my solution fails to even load and I get no stack trace. Good problems indeed. So I then decided it was time to uninstall MVC 4.0 and come back at a later date because the project had no intentions of updating to 4.0 yet. Uninstall and I still get the same issue...uh oh something else major has happened.

Ok maybe the update changed my project in some way, easy fix, blow away the project and re-checkout the latest code.

Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Mvc, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Wait....WTF? I never updated the code I was using to me an MVC 4 application. Why are you looking for this now? Ok let me search in my code for the reference. 0, ziltch, goose egg. That is the number of times that I have found that reference in the solution.

Next step, system restore to before the install. Luckily that was less than 12 before I figured this step out. Run the restore and now I get another fun error.

System.ObjectDisposedException

Which when you Google gives you all of nothing for information on how to fix the issue. Seriously at this point I was about ready to sacrifice a goat to Cthulhu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster if I thought it would help.  Some where is calling  dispose() in the wrong order, fun part though is I can''t set a break point. I get this error as soon as I open the solution.

So here is the real fun, my coworker is running the application just fine, never did the update. I can open any other app, as long as it is not MVC 3.0 and now I am at a crossroads. Do I keep uninstalling all things MVC and build back up, system restore to some time last week, or re install windows? 

I will be back to update this post once I fix this stupid issue.