@Bill Hiebert [MSFT]'s suggestion of right clicking on the solution node and selecting "Set Startup Project" worked like a charm. Thank you Bill. This will eliminate a lot of grief I have multiple times a day. I can see how Current Selection should be the default for this setting, but I might suggest that on the dialog that comes up saying that this project isn't the start up project could have better wording that guides the user to the setting for a single project. Right now the wording is pretty useless because the first "set as startup project" you see is the one on the project itself, not the solution. I don't think I have ever right clicked on the solution until now.

Or, when you do right click on the project and say "set as startup project", it should change the solution setting from Current Selection to Single start up project with it as the target. I have selected the project's Set as startup project a hundred times with out it having any seeming effect. Maybe that is the real bug here - selecting "Set as startup project" on a project does not change the solution setting from Current Selection to Single startup project.