How to run vswhere on powershell - visual-studio

Question

I found this script for finding where msbuild.exe is, but it's not working. When I run it, it says "A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'latest'" https://github.com/microsoft/vswhere/wiki/Find-MSBuild
Here is my script:
$path = %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe -latest -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -find MSBuild\**\Bin\MSBuild.exe | select-object -first 1
if ($path) {
& $path $args
}
Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I tried encapsulating the path in quotes, and putting it into a variable and tried using Invoke-Expression but this also did not work. In bash all I would need to do is encapsulate the command with ` and it would work.
Invoke-Expression -Command "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe"
x86: The term 'x86' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
This also does not work

Answer 1

Try this, here I am expliclty creating a list of arguments in seperate strings.
$path = "$(${env:CommonProgramFiles(x86)})\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe"
$args = "-latest", "-requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild", "-find MSBuild\**\Bin\MSBuild.exe"
if ($path) {
Start-Process $path -ArgumentList $args
}
I am unable to test as i dont have Visual Studio.

Answer 2

This is "small" script which I wrote.
It will:
download latest recomended Nuget.exe in same directory where this PS script will be saved.
download/install "vswhere" nuget (in script directory)
will find latest "MSBuild.exe" path
$latestRecomendedUrl = "https://dist.nuget.org/win-x86-commandline/latest/nuget.exe"
$currentScriptDir = "$PSScriptRoot"
$nuget = Join-Path "$currentScriptDir" "nuget.exe"
if (!(Test-Path "$nuget" -pathType Leaf)) {
# download if not exists
Invoke-WebRequest "$latestRecomendedUrl" -OutFile "$nuget" | Out-Null
}
$vswhereExePartFromScriptDir = (Get-ChildItem -Path "$currentScriptDir" -Filter "vswhere.exe" -Recurse -Name)
$vswhereExe = Join-Path "$currentScriptDir" "$vswhereExePartFromScriptDir"
if ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($vswhereExePartFromScriptDir)) {
try {
$args = "install", "-x", "-o", "$currentScriptDir", "vswhere"
&"$nuget" $args
Write-Host "Nuget was successfully downloaded."
}
finally {
$vswhereExePartFromScriptDir = (Get-ChildItem -Path "$currentScriptDir" -Filter "vswhere.exe" -Recurse -Name)
$vswhereExe = Join-Path "$currentScriptDir" "$vswhereExePartFromScriptDir"
# in my case install throws error #"nuget.exe : The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open."#
# but it download vswhere package successfully - so throw error only if it does not exist
if ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($vswhereExePartFromScriptDir)) {
Write-Error "Failed to download 'vswhere.exe'."
}
else {
Write-Host "vswhere executable: ""$vswhereExe"""
}
}
}
else {
Write-Host "vswhere executable: ""$vswhereExe"""
}
$args = "-latest", "-products", "*", "-requires", "Microsoft.Component.MSBuild", "-find", "MSBuild\**\Bin\MSBuild.exe"
$msbuildExe = $(& "$vswhereExe" $args) | select-object -first 1
Write-Host "MSBuild exeutable: ""$msbuildExe"""
Output:
Feeds used:
https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\NuGetPackages\
Installing package 'vswhere' to 'G:\scripts\ps'.
CACHE https://api.nuget.org/v3/registration5-gz-semver2/vswhere/index.json
Attempting to gather dependency information for package 'vswhere.3.1.1' with respect to project 'G:\scripts\ps', targeting 'Any, Version=
v0.0'
Gathering dependency information took 15 ms
Attempting to resolve dependencies for package 'vswhere.3.1.1' with DependencyBehavior 'Lowest'
Resolving dependency information took 0 ms
Resolving actions to install package 'vswhere.3.1.1'
Resolved actions to install package 'vswhere.3.1.1'
Retrieving package 'vswhere 3.1.1' from 'nuget.org'.
Adding package 'vswhere.3.1.1' to folder 'G:\scripts\ps'
WARNING: Install failed. Rolling back...
Executing nuget actions took 483 ms
nuget.exe : The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open.
At G:\scripts\ps\Get-MsBuildDir.ps1:21 char:9
+ &"$nuget" $args
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (The requested o...d section open.:String) [], RemoteException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : NativeCommandError
Nuget was successfully downloaded.
vswhere executable: "G:\scripts\ps\vswhere\tools\vswhere.exe"
MSBuild exeutable: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe"