>Someone has plugged IIS Express into a project. When I download that project, I cannot open it because of that. How can I remove that dependency at that project level to avoid that?

You could try editing the .csproj file and removing the UseIISExpress and following related elements. Haven't tried it but it might allow you to open the project. If you can open it the you can change the server settings in the 'Web' tab of the property pages....