Developers use the Visual Studio (VS) GUI to develop their solutions and get their projects all building using a solution file (.SLN). The build teams using vNext then have to automate those builds using MSBuild instead of devenv.exe (the Visual Studio executable file). This is a serious and chronic problem because not only is MSBuild incapable of building several project types, but the build order is defined in a completely different, and complex, way.
Some Microsoft advice (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/msbuild/incorrect-solution-build-ordering-when-using-msbuild-exe) is to switch to explicit dependencies in each .*proj file and remove all dependency specifications in the .SLN file. This sounds like a person who has never worked in a relatively powerless build team trying to get development teams to:
do a lot of what they perceive as time-wasting extra work and to
change how they do things
What build teams need is a way to automate whatever VS allows dev teams to build. If VS is given a SLN to build, then a vNext build needs to be able to use that same SLN in the same way. Instead vNext currently only offers MSBuild as the build tool. MSBuild has many more options than devenv, so that would be great, IF it could be made to use the SLN to govern dependencies in the same way as VS, and would be upgraded to build all the same project types.
There have been prospective efforts, referenced by PatrickLu-MSFT at Build project using devenv.exe in TFS 15RC1 Build Server, to enhance a vNext build step to allow devenv to be used instead of MSBuild, but those efforts seem to have been dropped.
Maybe someone has developed a custom vNext build step to build using devenv?
Here is an existing extension you can reference, which provides a build task in your TFS/VSTS instance that will allow you to build your projects using DevEnv.com (Visual Studio):
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mmajcica.devenv-build
If you want to automatically use TFS/DevOps build whatever solution files our development teams get working using Visual Studio, you could set CI trigger in build pipeline, when the solution build successfully on local, you can check in/commit the changes, and trigger TFS/DevOps builds.
Related
I have a large solution of dozens of projects. Since yesterday (and for no good reason that I can find) the projects are refusing to build, with Visual Studio's build output window simply stating (eg)
1>------ Skipped Rebuild All: Project: Api.Models.Common ------
There are already a few similar q/a's here about the reasons why VS may decide to skip a build (Configuration not set to build, or set to build wrong target). I'm not interested in guesses as to why this isn't building. I'd really like answers to help me diagnose this, and have Visual Studio tell me why it thinks it can skip the build.
Is there a way to have VS generate anything more detailed than Skipped rebuild for example? It must be calling msbuild under the covers right? So can I have Visual Studio pass additional parameters to msbuild so that it generates diagnostic log output?
(For what it's worth - calling msbuild from the command line builds the projects as expected, so it seems like my issue is something quirky that VS is doing).
I'm using VS 2017 - 15.9.4
If you have any unload projects, you must load it or you remove it in solution.
Note: My unloaded project was the result of a permission issue. VS warned that a project was configured to use IIS. To run the project with IIS required launching VS as an administrator.
This was happening in my solution with Visual Studio 2019. I just migrated my applications from .Net Framework 4.6 to .NET5, almost all the projects were not building, it gets always skipped. The reason was that after the migration the tool upgrade assistant was not setting the Target Framwework as in the preceding image (Right-click on the project and then click on Properties).
After setting it to the right framework, in my case, it was .NET 5.0, the project started to build.
Seems like a pretty obvious question but I haven't been able to find this anywhere online - but what exactly counts as building something manually? As in if I do Ctrl+Shift+B on Visual Studio is that manually building? Then how could I go from that to automated build (running it from command line?). All I know is that I am supposed to use MSBuild to do automated builds on a project that is currently built 'manually'.
What is Manual Build?
Whether you are using Visual Studio or MSBuild command to build is considered to be manual build. That because you need to build your project manually every time no matter you are using Visual Studio or MSBuild command. And the hot key Ctrl+Shift+B is a quick start mode to build project in Visual Studio.
If you want to automated build, you should consider 'continuous integration' For example, TFS(Team Foundation Server), Teamcity, etc. You can easily search those continuous integration info on the internet.
The biggest difference between manual build and automated build is that you should manually build your project every time when source code changes, but automated build will execute the build automatically by continuous integration tool when source code changes, no need to build your project manually.
I have a .net poject (wpf, excel and asp.net site), I also have a build machine for the purpose of continuous integration. For continuous integration to work, I need to be able to build the project. So, what I have done so far is install visual studio on a build machine and things will build fine, but I dont really have that option, so I was wondering what do I need to run from the visual studio setup, just to be able to build projects, meaning I am pretty sure some of things like f# in this case or MVC frameworks are not something that I need. Is it possible to run a few of the executable or just customize the install and if so what are the mandatory things that I need to select to basically boil down to having a solution be able to build and not have the ide installed?
Thanks
MSBuild is the component that builds your solutions. You can have a look at this question to run it with minimal installation:
Installing MSBuild 4.0 without Visual Studio 2010
I have a c# solution with multiple projects. I have a .sln file I build the solution with in VS2012.
I am looking to set up TFS Build and want to include some custom msbuild actions, such as running stylecop and fxcop rules. I want these tasks to fire when building the solution locally and within tfs build.
I have looked at creating a .proj file for the solution. However, I am not sure how this can be setup locally and to run the tasks locally.
What is the correct setup for tasks to be run within tfs build and visual studio?
My best guess is to set the flag "Enable Code Analysis on Build" in the project settings "Code Analysis". More on that here.
I suppose that running StyleCop is better fitted in the IDE (check R#) or the VCS (check SVNStyleCop) on commit. I am not sure if the same exists for GIT or other repositories.
I'm a solo developer running Visual Studio 2008 and looking into MSBuild to improve my build process.
Almost all of the tutorials I've found so far have plenty of information about writing a build file. However I'm having a lot of trouble finding out how to integrate MSBuild into Visual Studio. Maybe MSBuild is only used with something like CruiseControl but that's overkill for me as a single developer.
Where should the build file live in a Visual Studio project and how can I run it from within the IDE?
Visual Studio executes MSBuild automatically for projects it supports.
If you right click on a project and unload it, you can then edit it in Visual Studio. Reload (right click on project again), force a (re)build to test your changes. An alternative is to edit the project file in an external editor and Visual Studio will detect saves and offer to reload the project for you.
Sounds like you're on the right track, and if you are considering writing Targets or custom MSBuild Tasks, take the time to separate them from your current project so that you can re-use them. Don't re-invent the wheel though, the two main complementary MSBuild projects are MSBuild Community Tasks and MSBuild Extension Pack.
Update: Judging from your comment on Mitch's answer, you might also want to consider adding a new Configuration element or custom properties to a project. A new MSBuild Configuration (something other than the default Debug/Release) could run unit tests, build documentation, or whatever you want automated. A custom MSBuild property would allow you to use normal Debug/Release Configuration and extend it to automate more of your build process, just depends on what you want. Either approach could also be driven from the command line.
As others have noted, MSBuild is already available when you install Visual Studio.
If you want to integrate into VS2008: Running MSBuild from Visual Studio
MSBuild is the build engine used by Visual Studio to process the files included in a project.The Visual Studio project files themselves (**.csproj* for C#, and .vbproj for VB, for example) are in fact MSBuild scripts that are run every time you build a project.
Your .csproj file is a MSBuild file. So you are actually using it already.
You may of course wish to create a separate build file to have more control, especially within a continuous integration or nightly build say.
If you simply wish to edit your project build file then you can use the IDE to edit some settings such as pre and post build actions or edit the Xml itself by unloading project and right click and editing.
You can use your current .vcproj files to build your project with MSBuild. However, as MSBuild is not directly supported (at least for vc++) vcbuild is used instead (internally).
In VS2010 all project files are MSBuild based...
This is an older article about some simple extension points from the msbuild team
How To: Insert Custom Process at Specific Points During Build
Also, don't forget you can use the MSBuild SideKick for developing and debugging your (local) msbuilds, available for free at http://www.attrice.info/msbuild/
I'd suggest you call msbuild as a post build step. Then you can put your build script somewhere in your solution and call it.
<windowsdir>\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\MSBuild.exe c:\temp\MyProject\mybuildfile.proj
The easiest way is probably to invoke your custom build script using a post-build step. Right click project, choose "Build Events" and call msbuild with your custom msbuild file from there.
I use the msbuild template to intergrate with visual studio
http://msbuildtemplate.codeplex.com/