.Net Deployment Build Error HRESULT = '80004005'

I've got a Visual Studio 2005 Deployment project for an application I distribute internally, and came across this crazy error while rebuilding the MSI file.

------ Starting pre-build validation for project 'MyProjectInstall' ------
ERROR: An error occurred while validating.  HRESULT = '80004005'
------ Pre-build validation for project 'MyProjectInstall' completed ------

No other clues as to the actual problem. Some googling revealed that this has to do with a project building with references it does not need (or in my case stale references). A quick fix is to go to the offending 'Primary Output' project, and remove all of its non-Microsoft references. Then add them one by one until the project compiles. At this point your deployment project should compile without any hassles.