referencing root directory of web site?

Hi all...

I'm having a problem developing a CSS-based menu structure. I prefer having many of my files in subdirectories below the root. For example, I have a subdirectory just off the root, called "Computer", and a file called stuff.aspx.

When I used Dreamweaver, I could refer to this file as /Computer/stuff.aspx. However, when I do that with Visual Studio, it seems to take into consideration the name of the folder where I created my project as part of the web site!

For example, I created my web site in a file called "Personal". When I get errors (like trying to use the ~ symbol for referencing the root directory), the error I get has "Personal" in the error message.

Is this a Visual Studio thing? If I ran under IIS would that help? Of course, I guess I should try that, but it's so convenient just to run under the Visual Studio Development Server while testing.