This bugged us for a while, then we found a setting to turn it off. The issue is this:
When you set a dependency in the solution, say A is dependent on B...the IDE will then LINK B when linking A. This is not always the desired behavior, like when trying to use dependencies to merely control the build order. COM objects, other EXEs, resource only DLLs, etc. do not have a .lib and therefore cause linker to barf when looking for this "dependent" lib.

Fix:
For the dependent project (B in above sample case), project settings, linker, general, set Ignore Import Library to Yes.