OS: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.14393]
VS-Version: 2017 Community
When I run vswhere.exe I get the following back and based on on the official vswhere documentation I can build the path to msbuild and this seems to work:
C:\Users\user\Desktop>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe"
Visual Studio Locator version 1.0.62 [query version 1.10.80.60812]
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
[...]
installationPath: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community
[...]
C:\Users\user\Desktop>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe"
Microsoft (R)-Buildmodul, Version 15.1.1012.6693
If I start the developer command prompt located in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\Tools\VsMSBuildCmd.bat" I get the following result:
C:\Users\user>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\Tools\VsMSBuildCmd.bat"
**********************************************************************
** Visual Studio 2017 MSBuild Command Prompt
** Copyright (c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation
**********************************************************************
C:\Users\user>where msbuild
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe
Why and what is the second path returned after starting the developer command prompt
I always use the first path ("C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe") to call msbuild for building C/C++/VC++ Projects. Is this in someway wrong?
VS 2017 switched to local copies of msbuild, if you used a VS 2015 command prompt, you would see a different global path.
The where command lists all the matching executable files that it finds on the PATH, but only the first one will be used by the command prompt when you run an msbuild command.
The second msbuild.exe you see is part of the .NET Framework - this is the version of MSBuild that was integrated into and shipped as part of the .NET Framework. This version is old compared to the ones installed by recent versions of Visual Studio. But it will likely be continued to be included in .NET Framework for compatibility reasons. It is even able to build a lot of projects that will then use the targets and tasks installed by VS - only project format changes that required changes to MSBuild itself will be incompatible (like the new project format used for .NET Core projects).
You should always use the VS 2017 version of msbuild.exe to always get build results consistent with visual studio.
Related
How can the entry
<MsTestExePath>$(MSBuildProgramFiles32)Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\mstest.exe</MsTestExePath>
in a .proj file be generalised, such that the build works for different licenses of Visual Studio 2019 as well, where mstest.exe is located at
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2019\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe
in the case of an enterprise license?
The most generic solution may be to replace the variable parts of the path with msbuild macros, but which ones would that be?
According to this documentation,
The macro
$(VSInstallDir)
returns the path to the installation folder of the Visual Studio version currently used.
The following entry should therefore work for all versions of visual studio, for which mstest.exe is located in the subfolder \Common7\IDE\ under the installation directory:
<MsTestExePath>$(VSInstallDir)Common7\IDE\mstest.exe</MsTestExePath>
I have had to do a few update of Visual Studio on my Windows 10 machine (after some licensing issues).
I use to have Visual Studio Enterprise 2017, which I uninstalled. I now have Visual Studio Professional 2017, and Studio Enterprise 2019 (which I recently installed). I also installed Visual Studio Build Tools 2019 (2).
Now, when I try to build my Ionic project via the command I have always used...
ionic cordova build windows --prod --release -- --archs="x86 x64 arm" --buildConfig=platform_build_files\\windows\\build.config
I now get the error...
Building project: D:\dev\myapp\platforms\windows\CordovaApp.Windows10.jsproj
Configuration : release
Platform : x86
Buildflags : /p:AppxBundle=Never,/p:UapAppxPackageBuildMode=StoreUpload
MSBuildTools : C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin
buildProject spawn: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild [ 'D:\\dev\\myapp\\platforms\\windows\\CordovaApp.Windows10.jsproj', '/clp:NoSummary;NoItemAndPropertyList;Verbosity=minimal',
'/nologo',
'/p:Configuration=release',
'/p:Platform=x86',
'/p:AppxBundle=Never',
'/p:UapAppxPackageBuildMode=StoreUpload' ] { stdio: 'inherit' }
The system cannot find the path specified.
No valid MSBuild was detected for the selected target: Error: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild: Command failed with exit code ENOENT
Of course I no longer have a folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise as I uninstalled it.
I have removed and readded the windows platform for my Ionic app, but this did not help.
Also, I am not sure if this is related, but when I try to open the CordovaApp.sln in Visual Studio 2019, I get the following...
Not sure if related.
My question is, how can I reset this MSBuild path? I cannot see any environmental variables anywhere for this, I just can't get rid of this old path
Edit 1
I added the env var as suggested:
Opened a new command prompt, but it is still looking for the non-existent path
No valid MSBuild was detected for the selected target: Error: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild: Command failed with exit code ENOENT
In Visual Studio 2019, creating UWP apps using Javascript is no longer supported, if you want to build UWP apps using web technologies like Cordova. You need to use Visual Studio 2017.
My question is, how can I reset this MSBuild path?
Visual Studio will choose the version of MSBuild without explicit settings, but you can change this by setting environment variables.
Please add the path of MSBuild to the system environment variable, like:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin
Best regards.
My sln is built in VS2017 and contains several .Net Standard class library dll. Build always works successfully in my local machine/virtual machine, with VS UI or just use devenv.com via command-line.
But, when I use TFS to create build task, error about InternalVisibleTo shows.
When I use MSBuild,
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild.exe" "C:\WorkArea\xxxxx\_work\1\s\xxxxx\Main\Source\xxxx.sln" /nologo /nr:false /t:"Clean" /dl:CentralLogger,"C:\WorkArea\xxxxx\tasks\MSBuild\1.0.55\ps_modules\MSBuildHelpers\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.DistributedTask.MSBuild.Logger.dll";"RootDetailId=30268741-631d-4ac8-b4d2-d5b2774b61e7|SolutionDir=C:\WorkArea\xxxxx\_work\1\s\xxxx\Main\Source"*ForwardingLogger,"C:\WorkArea\xxxxx\tasks\MSBuild\1.0.55\ps_modules\MSBuildHelpers\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.DistributedTask.MSBuild.Logger.dll" /p:platform="Any CPU" /p:configuration="Debug" /p:_MSDeployUserAgent="TFS_6e1df8d0-1a29-425d-803c-d70779d0c76a_build_3175_345868"
it has the error:
When I use devenv.com,
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\devenv.com" "C:\WorkArea\xxxxxx\_work\1\s\xxxxx\Main\Source\xxxxxx.sln" /build "debug"
it has the error:
Is it a known issue or bug of Current Visual Studio 2017 (version 15.2 - 26430.6)? What's wrong with the AssemlyInfo? What's wrong with the TFS build?
You need to restore NuGet packages before attempting the build to resolve references to the reference assemblies that provide you the core types.
You can do this using msbuild /t:Restore (TFS/VSTS: use msbuild task) or nuget.exe restore (use a nuget.exe >= 4.0.0).
There must be some issue within the latest Visual Studio 2017. They, the Microsoft, change the project file structure of .Net Core / standard a lot from 2017 RC to current one.
I'm building many Visual Studio projects (.sln solutions files) from command-line with:
call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"
for /r %%X in (/*.sln) do (
msbuild %%X /p:configuration=release /p:platform=win32 /nologo /noconsolelogger /fileLogger /v:quiet /flp:logfile=build_errors.log;errorsonly;append
)
Unfortunately, they all have been created with MSVS2010. Thus I get errors:
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120\Microsoft.Cpp.Platform.targets(64,5): error MSB8020: The build tools for Visual Studio 2010 (Platform Toolset = 'v100') cannot be found. To build using the v100 build tools, please install Visual Studio 2010 build tools. Alternatively, you may upgrade to the current Visual Studio tools by selecting the Project menu or right-click the solution, and then selecting "Upgrade Solution...".
As I have 20 or 30 .sln files, I don't want to open each one and Upgrade solution, etc. (which I even didn't find exactly as mentioned here!).
Is there a command-line solution to upgrade all of them to MSVS2013 ?
You can upgrade solution and all of its project files through devenv /upgrade command. (devenv.exe is in the VS installation path (..\Common7\IDE).
devenv SolutionFile | ProjectFile /upgrade
To build solution/project without upgrade, you can specify Toolset argument (/tv).
msbuild %%X /p:configuration=release /p:platform=win32 /tv:12.0
If this is the only problem you can retarget the projects to use the VS2013 toolset instead of the one in VS2010. You can write a simple script in a language of your choice (or even do it manually) that iterates over all of your project files and replaces the value of PlatformToolset property to the <PlatformToolset>Visual Studio 2013 (v120)</PlatformToolset>. Alternatively, you can download and install the VS2010 build tools from the SDK - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8279
In Visual Studio 2017's New Project dialog, there is no entry for Windows Installer XML (WiX).
Is it possible to enable WiX projects in Visual Studio 2017?
You can manually enable Visual Studio 2017 compatibility with WiX 3.10 or earlier:
Close all instances of Visual Studio.
Copy
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\WiX to
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\WiX
(In the destination path, replace "Enterprise" with "Professional" or "Community" depending on your edition.)
You may need to provide Administrator permission:
The result will look like this:
Copy C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\WiX
Then execute the following command as Administrator:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\devenv" /setup
(Again, replace "Enterprise" with "Professional" or "Community" depending on your edition.)
When you open Visual Studio 2017, WiX 3.10 and earlier projects will be compatible.
WiX v3.11.0.1507 provides full support for the VS 2017 Extension For WiX.
The Release Notes provide insight into why it has taken so long to provide the extension and compatibility with the extension and older versions of WiX
Note: You can use the "WiX Toolset Visual Studio 2017 Extension" with previous versions of the WiX Toolset but there is a forwards compatibility issue when building managed custom actions that is only fixed in the WiX v3.11 RC release. In other words, if you have managed custom actions and you want to use VS 2017 then you must upgrade to WiX v3.11 RC.
Edit:
The VS 2019 Extension is now available.
Edit:
The VS 2022 Extension is now available.
The Wix Releases Page has links to the other extensions.
I found that I also had to copy the WiX folder from "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft". Without this, I got an error trying to load my WiX project that one of the MSBuild targets files couldn't be found.
WiX now offers support for Visual Studio 2017.
All you have to do is:
Close Visual Studio 2017
Install the WiX Toolset Build Tools
Install the WiX Toolset Visual Studio 2017 Extension
The answer by Chris works, but on my machine, for some reason, the Wix folder in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\WiX" had only one template named "CustomActionCPP.zip". I had to search for a complete Wix folder in other older versions of Visual Studio. It worked for me by copying Wix from "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\WiX\ProjectTemplates".
Also, had to apply the answer by Basim, by copying Wix from "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft" to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\Microsoft".
I have installed ONLY VS2017 and had to copy from another machine where VS2015 was installed the mentionen folder of #Chris Schiffhauer. The same for the folder of #Basim mentioned.
Addiontally I had to copy the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Wix Toolset 3.10\" because when I have installed WiX on my machine in this folder were still some assemblies missing.
Install the Wix Toolset Visual Studio 2019 Extension and reload the project
right-click the project folder in the path and uncheck the read-only
after install the Extension reload the Wix
use the below URL download
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=WixToolset.WixToolsetVisualStudio2019Extension