I found the reason for it and a workaround... it appears that you cannot create a project within a path that has an ampersand (&) in it, which my original projects path did. In Tools/Options/Projects and Solutions/General, I selected the "Show advanced build configurations' option. This allows me to select the project build location on creation of a project, and I am now able to ensure it does not try to create in the path with the ampersand in it.