My ultimate goal is to create a distribution folder when I build my solution that will contain all of the binaries and other required files whenever I build my solution. I thought the best way to do this would be to add a before.solutionName.sln.targets file that will create these directories. When I build the project using msbuild.exe and the command line the directory is created (from the before.targets file). However, when I build from within visual studio the directory is not created. And I have tried to close the solution and reopen it to make sure the solution has been reloaded.
Also, I know I can do this from a project file but since the solution contains multiple projects it doesnt make sense to have each solution create the required directories. If I can get Visual Studio to use these .targets files instead I can reuse them in other projects with the same form.