diff --git a/backend/FwHeadless/FwHeadless.csproj b/backend/FwHeadless/FwHeadless.csproj
index 416603a75..82dcf0521 100644
--- a/backend/FwHeadless/FwHeadless.csproj
+++ b/backend/FwHeadless/FwHeadless.csproj
@@ -5,8 +5,6 @@
     <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
     <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
     <Mercurial4ChorusDestDir>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)</Mercurial4ChorusDestDir>
-    <!-- MSBuild complains about duplicate Content item "Mercurial/contrib/asv.conf.json" without this -->
-    <EnableDefaultContentItems>false</EnableDefaultContentItems>
   </PropertyGroup>
 
   <ItemGroup>
@@ -26,6 +24,8 @@
   </ItemGroup>
 
   <ItemGroup>
+      <!-- json files get imported by default because this is a web project, so exclude those here so they aren't imported again below -->
+      <Content Remove="Mercurial\contrib\asv.conf.json"/>
       <Content Include="Mercurial\**" CopyToOutputDirectory="Always" Watch="false" />
       <Content Include="MercurialExtensions\**" CopyToOutputDirectory="Always" Watch="false" />
   </ItemGroup>