I've read the How to include debugging symbols to .vsix package question and answer and Daniel Cazzulino's post but those ignore the fact that one's VSIX needs to include PDBs from other sources like nuget packages.
For example:
I have a VSIX project, name it MyExtension.vsix. It references a nuget package, name it SomeNuget which in turn consists of SomeNuget.dll and SomeNuget.pdb.
I'd like to include that SomeNuget.pdb into my MyExtension.vsix.
If there an answer for that?
Thanks to a confirmed problem in nuget packaging workflow I got myself a workaround:
Appending this:
<PropertyGroup>
<CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>true</CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>
<IncludeAssemblyInVSIXContainer>true</IncludeAssemblyInVSIXContainer>
<IncludeDebugSymbolsInVSIXContainer>true</IncludeDebugSymbolsInVSIXContainer>
<IncludeDebugSymbolsInLocalVSIXDeployment>true</IncludeDebugSymbolsInLocalVSIXDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="_ResolveCopyLocalNuGetPackagePdbs"
Condition="$(CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies) == true"
AfterTargets="ResolveReferences"
BeforeTargets="GetVsixSourceItems">
<ItemGroup>
<VSIXCopyLocalReferenceSourceItem
Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths->'%(RootDir)%(Directory)%(Filename).pdb')"
Condition="Exists('%(RootDir)%(Directory)%(Filename).pdb')" />
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
into the vsix.csproj file seals the deal. For me this works in all versions of visual studio I build extensions for:
2010
2015
2017
2019
2022
Related
I would like to add some MsBuild files, which are in different Git repositories, but are always built at the same time, to a common Visual Studio solution. In VS2022, support for multi-repo solutions has been added, which seems like a useful feature for me.
My MsBuild files are quite simple. They do not compile anything; they only run an external tool or print summaries of item lists.
I have renamed the extension of my files from .proj to .msbuildproj, since .proj was not an accepted project format in Visual Studio. Still, Visual Studio will not accept my MsBuild files as project files ("cannot be opened by the project system", "missing some critical imports").
What is the recommended project/solution type to go with in this case? What would a valid .msbuildproj file look like?
Sample MsBuild file:
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="Build">
<Import Project="MyFiles.xml"/>
<Target Name="Build" DependsOnTargets="PrintSourceFiles"/>
<Target Name="PrintSourceFiles">
<ItemGroup>
<MyList Include="#(MyFirstFiles);#(OtherTexts);#(TheRestOfTheFiles)"></MyList>
</ItemGroup>
<Message Text="%(MyList.FullPath)" />
</Target>
</Project>
My solution creates a Visual Studio Package from multiple projects, using multiple NuGet packages.
All of the Nuget packages are specified in the project files using PackageReference (rather than the older packages.config file). I am using Visual Studio 2019.
I have had a problem, that the DLLs referenced by NuGet Packages are not included in the VSIX installation.
There is a solution to this problem, described in this article by Daniel Cazzulino, by adding the following code to the project file:
<PropertyGroup>
<GetVsixSourceItemsDependsOn>$(GetVsixSourceItemsDependsOn);IncludeNuGetResolvedAssets</GetVsixSourceItemsDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="IncludeNuGetResolvedAssets" DependsOnTargets="ResolveNuGetPackageAssets">
<ItemGroup>
<VSIXCopyLocalReferenceSourceItem Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" />
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
This does work, but it blows up the size of the installation from about 20MB to about 40MB.
The installation now includes a lot of PDB files, which I don't really need.
More significantly, it brings in about 46MB of Visual Studio DLLs which are not necessary, because they are part of Visual Studio.
Is there a better way to ensure that the referenced NuGet packages are included in the VSIX, without inflating the installation with these other files?
You can use a simple script like this:
<Target Name="IncludeNuGetPackageReferences" AfterTargets="GetVsixSourceItems">
<ItemGroup>
<VSIXSourceItem Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" Condition="'%(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.NuGetPackageId)' == 'Newtonsoft.Json'" />
<VSIXSourceItem Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" Condition="'%(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.NuGetPackageId)' == 'xxx'" />
... </ItemGroup>
</Target>
You can specify what assemblies should be included into .vsix . And it won't copy the unnecessary VS assemblies after tests in my machine. Hint from smourier, thanks to him.
Hope it helps:)
I'm updating an old Visual Studio extension for VS 2017. It compiles fine from Visual Studio and msbuild in debug and release on my local computer.
This is the msbuild command line I am using:
msbuild VxCop.sln /p:ToolsHome=C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform="Any CPU"
However, on the build machine (TFS Build 2010) calling msbuild.exe with the same command line it fails with this error
In order to fix this I am trying to specify VSToolsPath. I've tried various things such as altering the VSToolsPath entry in the .csproj (which seems to not be taken into account since doing this had no effect) and also passing it on the command line:
msbuild VxCop.sln /p:ToolsHome=C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform="Any CPU" /p:VSToolsPath=Packages\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.15.1.192\tools\
This causes a very strange error:
CopyFilesToOutputDirectory:
Copying file from "obj\Release\SymCop.dll" to "bin\Release\SymCop.dll".
SymCop -> H:\src\tools\VisualStudioExtensions\Main\VxCop\source\SymCop\bin\Release\SymCop.dll
Copying file from "obj\Release\SymCop.pdb" to "bin\Release\SymCop.pdb".
Done Building Project "H:\src\tools\VisualStudioExtensions\Main\VxCop\source\SymCop\SymCop.csproj" (default targets).
Done Building Project "H:\src\tools\VisualStudioExtensions\Main\VxCop\VxCop.sln" (Build target(s)) -- FAILED.
Done Building Project "H:\src\tools\VisualStudioExtensions\Main\VxCop\build.proj" (default targets) -- FAILED.
Build FAILED.
0 Warning(s)
0 Error(s)
The actual extension project isn't appearing in the log at all, and there's no, y'know, errors. But the build returns as failed, the return code is non-zero, and the vsix project seems to not be built (its output is missing)
Hopefully someone has some suggestions
Thanks
Edit:
For those reading this in the future, the problem seemed to be that there was an <Import> further down in the same file which didn't care about my update to $(VSToolsPath).
Changing that import fixed it:
<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\packages\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.15.1.192\tools\VSSDK\Microsoft.VsSDK.targets"
/>
Visual Studio 2017 extension - VSToolsPath not working
I got the same result as you based on your scripts. After installed the NuGet package Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools to the project, the Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.props will be imported in to project file, open the project file, you can find below Import:
<Import Project="..\packages\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.15.1.192\build\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.props" Condition="Exists('..\packages\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.15.1.192\build\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.props')" />
Then open this props file, you can notice below scripts snippet:
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup Label="VSSDK_NuGet_Configuration">
<ThisPackageDirectory>$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\</ThisPackageDirectory>
<VSToolsPath>$(ThisPackageDirectory)\tools</VSToolsPath>
<VsSDKInstall>$(VSToolsPath)\VSSDK</VsSDKInstall>
<VsSDKIncludes>$(VsSDKInstall)\inc</VsSDKIncludes>
<VsSDKToolsPath>$(VsSDKInstall)\bin</VsSDKToolsPath>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
In this case, NuGet package override the value VSToolsPath with $(ThisPackageDirectory)\tools. So MSBuild will skip set the value setting in the next step in the project file:
<PropertyGroup>
<MinimumVisualStudioVersion>15.0</MinimumVisualStudioVersion>
<VSToolsPath Condition="'$(VSToolsPath)' == ''">$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)</VSToolsPath>
<NuGetPackageImportStamp>
</NuGetPackageImportStamp>
</PropertyGroup>
Because NuGet have already set the value $(VSToolsPath), the value of Condition="'$(VSToolsPath)' == ''" would be False. In addition, you can add a target to check if the value is set, like:
<Target Name="CheckVSToolsPath" BeforeTargets="Build">
<Message Text="$(VSToolsPath)"></Message>
</Target>
You will find this value is set to:
C:\Users\Admin\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Projects\VSIXProject2\packages\Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools.15.1.192\build\..\\tools
Summary above, the value of VSToolsPath was imported correctly, we do not need to passing it on the command line.
After in-depth investigation, I found the reason for the previous error "MSB4226: The imported project "(...)\VSSDK\Microsoft.VsSDK.targets" was not found." is that the MSBuild property of "VisualStudioVersion" not be set on the build server.
See below link for detail info Building a VSIX extension with the Visual Studio 2017 Build Tools:
something that a machine with the full Visual Studio 2017 does and that a machine with the Build Tools 2017 does if you open a developer command prompt. Since I was not using it, I passed it as a parameter to the MSBuild script. It can be defined too inside the .csproj file, something that previous Visual Studio versions did automatically but recent versions don’t.
So to resolve the error "MSBuild4226", you should pass the visual studio version on command line:
msbuild VxCop.sln /p:ToolsHome=C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform="Any CPU" /p:VisualStudioVersion=15.0
After using this command line, the error MSBuild 4226 was resolved.
Hope this helps.
I resolved this problem in VS 2019 by https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/consume-packages/package-references-in-project-files#generatepathproperty
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools" Version="16.10.1055">
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
</PackageReference>
</ItemGroup>
<Import Project="$(PkgMicrosoft_VSSDK_BuildTools)\tools\vssdk\Microsoft.VsSDK.targets" />
I'm attempting update an existing application so that it will load in Visual Studio 2017 (Enterprise - V15.2 (26430.12)) from Visual Studio 2015 (Enterprise) and having issues with the AjaxMin build task.
In Visual Studio 2015, the AjaxMin build task is found in C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\MicrosoftAjax. Visual Studio 2017 looks for it in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft. Given that all developers on the team may not have VS2017 Enterprise and we've had issues in the past with developers installing the wrong version, I'd like to have it use the AjaxMin NuGet package referenced in the solution.
There are 3 projects in the solution that use the AjaxMin task. I've updated all of them to have the following import:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="12.0">
...
<Import Project="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\..\..\packages\AjaxMin.5.14.5506.26202\tools\net40\AjaxMin.targets" />
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<ItemGroup>
<JS Include="..." Exclude="..." />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<CSS Include="..." Exclude="..." />
</ItemGroup>
<AjaxMin Switches="..." JsSourceFiles="#(JS)" JsCombinedFileName="..." CssSourceFiles="#(CSS)" CssCombinedFileName="..." />
</Target>
...
</Project>
However, when the build happens, I receive an error saying it can't find the AjaxMin task in the default build extensions directory:
The "AjaxMin" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Program
Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\MicrosoftAjax\AjaxMinTask.dll.
Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files
(x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\MicrosoftAjax\AjaxMinTask.dll'
or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
Confirm that the declaration is correct, that the assembly
and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a
public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask.
I've used the MSBuild Message Task to output the path and verified that it is correct by navigating to it from the command prompt. I also tried using the UsingTask with no luck there.
Why is Visual Studio not looking for the AjaxMin DLL in the location I specified?
Update:
I moved the import tag for AjaxMin to the top (right under the project tag) and it works now. I don't understand why.
I resolved this issue by installing the .Net 3.5 framework
The issue turned out being another import for another third party build task. It appears that build task alters the build process such that the AjaxMin build task won't work after it. Having the AjaxMin build task after the Microsoft.CSharp.Targets import but before the other third party build task did the trick.
I moved the import tag for AjaxMin to the top (right under the project tag) and it works now. I don't understand why.
If I understand your question correctly, that is because you have two reference sources for the AjaxMinTask.dll, one is the default assembly source:C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\MicrosoftAjax, another is the import reference, you will notice that the AjaxMinTask.dll is used in the AjaxMin.targets:
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<UsingTask AssemblyFile="AjaxMinTask.dll" TaskName="AjaxMin" />
<UsingTask AssemblyFile="AjaxMinTask.dll" TaskName="AjaxMinBundleTask" />
<UsingTask AssemblyFile="AjaxMinTask.dll" TaskName="AjaxMinManifestTask" />
<UsingTask AssemblyFile="AjaxMinTask.dll" TaskName="AjaxMinManifestCleanTask" />
...
</Project>
So when set the import reference behind your task, MSBuild will use the default assembly source (under the VS2017 installation directory), when you set the import reference before you task, the AjaxMin.targets will rewrite the path of reference source.
Has anyone seen this error and know how to fix it?
The "TransformXml" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll.
Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
Confirm that the declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask.
I read elsewhere that the problem is when you don't have SQL Server installed. But I do have SQL Express 2012 x64 installed with SP1. I am also running VS 2013 Professional.
I have ran this exact same solution in VS 2012 express with no problems.
The answers provided by Dai Bok and emalamisura work fine as long as you use Visual Studio 2012.
For VS 2013 this fails as well. In order to make this work with all versions of Visual Studio you should:
Open the project file (.csproj) of the project failing to load
Search for <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets" />
Change it to <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets" />
Reload the project
That will set the correct version of Visual Studio dynamically and properly.
To get mine to work, I just copied my v10.0 folder and renamed it to v11.0, and things seems to work well from then on. That's the quick fix for now.
As this is probably not the best solution, and although it works, I was going to try installing the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4, but it is taking to long to download.
To fix the issue,
Find the Visual studio Installer in your computer
Click or tap to start the installer, and then select Modify.
From the Individual Components screen, select Asp.net and web development tools and then select Modify/Install.
This solved the issue as it creates the dll's in the mentioned path.
I've been combating this problem on our build server for several days, so I figured I'd document the resolution I came to. First, my build server has the web publishing extensions installed. I can use the TransformXml task to my heart's content inside of a web application project.
To use it outside of a web application project, I tried to add the UsingTask element to my project and point it to the right place using ms build properties (as Benjamin demonstrated). However, they weren't there on my build server (those with easy access to the file system of their build server can probably skip this and just install the relevant package to Visual Studio). I even went so far as to hard code visual studio versions, but it always dropped that error on me.
I finally gave up, pulled the DLLs from my local PC:
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll
I uploaded them to source control and added that folder to my build's workspace (Edit Build Definition -> Source Settings -> Source Control Folder). From there, I don't even need to reference the folder -- here's what my UsingTask looks like:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
Now I can use the TransformXml task to my heart's content from any project.
For VS2019
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(MSBuildToolsVersion
I replaced MSBuildToolsVersion with VisualStudioVersion.
Because there are only v12.0, v14.0 and v15.0 in my VisualStudio folder, I edit my project file and change the reference path from v10.0 to v14.0. Then the project builds successfully.
Before:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
After:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
Solutions provided seem to work for using VS as an IDE, but if you use DotnetCore via CLI or on a unix based system this does not work.
I found that the following seem to work
<PropertyGroup>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="'$(XmlTransformDllPath)' == '' AND '$(MSBuildRuntimeType)' == 'core'">$(MSBuildSDKsPath)/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish/tools/net5.0/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="'$(XmlTransformDllPath)' == '' AND '$(MSBuildRuntimeType)' != 'core'">$(MSBuildSDKsPath)/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish/tools/net472/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="!Exists($(XmlTransformDllPath))">$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
</PropertyGroup>
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(XmlTransformDllPath)" />
This solution takes into account netcore, full .net
For some reason MSBuildSDKsPath and MSBuildExtensionsPath32 are different on windows when using CLI vs VS2019
CLI:
MSBuildSDKsPath = C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.103\Sdks
MSBuildExtensionsPath32 = C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.103
Vs2019
MSBuildSDKsPath = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Sdks
MSBuildExtensionsPath32 = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild
Which on my Mac returns /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/5.0.201
Only problem I see is with the tools/net5.0 part of the name which changes ever release
Also created https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/16469 and answers this on The "TransformXml" task was not found (error MSB4036) on TeamCity build
The correct answer to this is to unload the project in question and then edit the csproj file, look for an entry where they are referencing the 10.0 path and change it to point to 11.0 instead.
You need two things to make it work:
1) Install Visual Studio Build Tools (You don't need the whole Visual Studio, only the VS Build Tools) with selected "Web development build tools" option on your build server
https://www.visualstudio.com/pl/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=BuildTools&rel=15
2) Ensure that path to Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll is correct
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(MSBuildToolsVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
For me it started working just by adding reference to the NuGet package MSBuild.Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.targets v14.0.0.3
Even no need to add UsingTask element to the project file as it mentioned by the package author
https://github.com/pdonald/nuget-webtargets
Just install the NuGet package. The package automatically sets the
$(VSToolsPath) property to use the targets file in the tools folder.
And then I was able to use TransformXml and other tasks, defined in the package, for instance to transform app.config
<Target Name="app_config_AfterCompile" AfterTargets="AfterCompile" Condition="Exists('app.$(Configuration).config')">
<!--Generate transformed app config in the intermediate directory-->
<TransformXml Source="app.config" Destination="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).config" Transform="app.$(Configuration).config" />
<!--Force build process to use the transformed configuration file from now on.-->
<ItemGroup>
<AppConfigWithTargetPath Remove="App.config" />
<AppConfigWithTargetPath Include="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).config">
<TargetPath>$(TargetFileName).config</TargetPath>
</AppConfigWithTargetPath>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
Just in case someone is using an SDK-style csproj, you can achieve this without having to install Visual Studio on the build server.
First you should install the SlowCheetah nuget package to your project. Once you install it, you'll see the following in your SDK-style project.
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah" Version="3.2.20">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
Then make sure you add the GeneratePathProperty="true" attribute (see below). This is very important for the next part because it'll help you grab the path of where the nuget package is restored on your machine. George Dangl explains it in his article here.
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah" Version="3.2.20" GeneratePathProperty="true">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
Import the SlowCheetah targets into your project:
<Import Project="$(PkgMicrosoft_VisualStudio_SlowCheetah)\build\Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah.targets" />
You can now use an target command (in this case after publish) to apply some custom transformations. If you need to, you can always hard-code the file names below instead of using the variables in the below example.
<Target Name="AfterPublishs" AfterTargets="Publish">
<TransformTask Source="Web.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).MyCustomTransformFile.config" Destination="$(PublishDir)\Web.config" />
</Target>
If you haven't used SlowCheetah before, I recommend checking it out. They have a Visual Studio extension that will make it easier for you to preview transform files.