My IT department provides a downloaded offline file share with all the files for Visual Studio 2019. I run the vs_enterprise.exe from this file share to install VS on mulitple Windows clients. Now the IT department will update the offline content based on updates published by Microsoft. I will run the Visual Studio Installer on each client and apply any updates that the IT department has download to the offline file share. The problem that I am running into is that I am trying to find a simple way to manage .NET Core packages that have gone out of date due to vulnerabilities. Scenario, I run the initial install in June and have certain runtimes and SDKs that get installed. Now in July the .NET Core packages have been updated. The old version of the installers are no longer in the offline file share but the old versions of the runtimes are still installed on my client. My IT department wants me to only keep the latest versions of the .NET core runtimes and SDKs installed. I have tried running the dotnet-core-uninstaller but that won't remove packages that were installed with the Visual Studio Installer. Right now, I have a very convoluted method to locate the installed GUID and using MSIEXEC uninstall the packages. There needs to be a better way to make sure that only the packages that are in the current offline file share are installed on the client after updating Visual Studio. So how can I easily remove .NET runtime and SDKs that have been made obsolete due to newer version and the installed packages are no longer in the offline file share?
I have several SSIS packages that were created and can be opened using Visual Studio 2010 with Integration Services. I have read in many locations that newer versions of Visual Studio can open these files. I have Visual Studio 2013, so I installed SQL Server Data Tools-Business Intelligence, and tried to open the solution with the SSIS project, which worked--but then, it tried to upgrade the packages, and gives me this error:
Failed to migrate scripts contained in the package to the VSTA 11.0
format. Move the scripts to a new Script Component.
Is there any way to edit the package "the old way" in VS2013, without upgrading/migrating the package?
How do I obey and do what it asks me to do? I can't find instructions anywhere. MSDN is unhelpful.
Can I install SQL Server Data Tools-Business Intelligence for new instances of Visual Studio 2010, so that others can edit these packages without upgrading them? It seems like the installers are gone.
No, none that I know of
Once the automatic upgrade has finished. You open each package with scripts. Open each script task/transformation. Recompile. Save. And Close.
Not that I know of.
This has worked for me upgrading from 2008 to 2012 and I think also applies to 2010 to 2012/3
Note that I think once you've upgraded the package - VS2010 should still be able to work with the package, but if you install the SSDT-BI for VS2013 then this will install the VS2013 Shell (enough to edit the packages) even if you don't have the the full VS2013 available.
Edit:
Do you have SQL Server 2012 SP2? I've found an issue with SSIS packages using VSTA on SP2 in that they won't open (ie. the designer won't open) and also they fail at run time. At this stage I've gone back from SP2 to continue working.
Can we use MSBuild without Visual Studio 2012?
Currently, we have a build server where we are compiling and creating deployment copy of one of our projects, it has Visual Studio Professional Edition installed. We are setting up a new build server now. Do we really need Visual Studio 2012 on the new build server?
If yes, then how? I googled it but I couldn't find an answer.
We have spent a lot of time trying to get our Build Servers to work without Visual Studio.
We do not use TFS for builds and therefore I am not sure the license exemption above applies to us. Also not having Visual Studio installed helps you really understand how your software is building and get references correct.
We have seen many examples of solutions with projects that contains references for the same piece of software with some in nuget packages shipped with the solution and others that are pointing to locations in the "program files" path which are not present on machines without Visual Studio installed. Once you attempt to build software without VS installed you can really see how "self-contained" your applications are.
Before I start listing the things you typically need to install, let me just point out that MS Build is now no longer considered part of the .NET framework but is shipped with Visual Studio but can also be installed separately. See this blog post for more: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2013/07/24/msbuild-is-now-part-of-visual-studio.aspx
The following software needs to be installed for most builds, there may be others for example if you are creating portable class libraries.
Microsoft Build Tools 2013
Web Deploy 3.5 (for packaging applications)
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.1 Developer Pack
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 Developer Pack
Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 8 (You can use the SDK to build applications that target these operating systems: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008)
The following directories need to be copied:
Reference Assemblies (need to be copied from a machine running Visual Studio from/to directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies)
Public Assemblies (need to be copied from a machine running Visual Studio from/to directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies
We also use Wix and therefore we install the following:
WIX Toolset 3.8
I have a similar set for testing however that was not part of the question so I will leave that off!
Hope this helps someone.
Update: 3rd March 2017
Microsoft recently responded to a long standing user voice request "Support .NET Builds without requiring Visual Studio on the server" for the requirement for Visual Studio to be installed on a build server to be removed.
From the description on the download page "These Build Tools allow you to build native and managed MSBuild-based applications without requiring the Visual Studio IDE." Not tested yet but after RTM I will look at this and provide a further update here.
There is a blog post that promises these build tools install all pre-requisites and can be used to build MS Build based applications.
No, you don't need Visual Studio on your build box. If I recall correctly, msbuild is installed as part of the .NET framework - it certainly used to be.
Depending on what you're building, you may find that there are some things which are easier to get working if you do install Visual Studio though - things like portable class library profiles. While there are usually non-VS installers available, I've found it simpler to install an Express edition of Visual Studio just to get the bundled build targets.
Remember: The easiest way to build your visual studio solutions is to install Visual Studio on the build server. Even Visual Studio Express is often enough.
That said, you can make it work without it. But it it sometimes a lot of work to figure out. You'll need to install the right Windows / .NET Platform SDK. You can install multiple of these SDKs side by side. Now, when you depend, for example, on ASP.NET MVC 5 or Entity Framework 6, you might need to install further SDKs to get your application to compile. The downloads for these all assume that you also have Visual Studio installed, but many of their payloads can also be installed separately. It can become quite a hassle.
Personally I've grown tired of trying to figure out which parts of which installers enable what. But that is also driven by the fact that Microsoft allows you to install Visual Studio on a build server (TFS) with the same license as your development machine as long as you are an MSDN subscriber. Check the Visual Studio License Whitepaper for more details.
Using Visual Studio on the Build Server
If you have one or more licensed users of Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN, Visual Studio Premium with MSDN, or Visual
Studio Professional with MSDN, then you may also install the Visual Studio software as part of Team Foundation Server
2013 Build Services. This way, you do not need to purchase a Visual Studio license to cover the running of Visual Studio on
the build server for each person whose actions initiate a build.
If you, like me, would prefer this to change in the future, I suggest you make sure you're heard by submitting your request or voting for an existing one over at the Visual Studio User Voice.
Here's just a quick take on this.
Your build machine should decouple development tools as much as is possible. With that said, and as already stated by others here, MSBuild can be run independently of Visual Studio, and it should!
If your build requires Visual Studio to run then there is a very good chance that you have a solution or project architecture problem that ought to be resolved.
Visual Studio doesn't need to be installed. MSBuild is part of the .net SDK.
Other .net dependencies will need to be installed though, if you are using them. MSTest, or anything that is part of Team foundation will require Visual Studio installed.
I believe you only need MSBuild ( that is part of the .NET framework you're targeting ) .
Make sure you install the proper .NET distribution
the following is a good place for build servers it have the developer tooling.
The .NET Framework 4.5.1 Developer Pack installs the multi-targeting pack for .NET Framework 4.5.1. Developers can build applications targeting the .NET Framework 4.5.1 using either Visual Studio 2012 or third party IDEs. You need to download the web installer instead of this package if you intend to redistribute .NET Framework 4.5.1.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40772
Best of luck.
C++ :
There is a "Build Tools" that contains MSBuild, Visual studio is not required.
From the official doc :
These tools allow you to build C++ libraries and applications
targeting Windows desktop. They are the same tools that you find in
Visual Studio 2015 in a scriptable standalone installer. Now you only
need to download the tools you need to build C++ projects.
Managed :
The same applied : Build Tool Managed
I have an inherited project in Visual Studio 2008 for which I need to create a build plan. Since the developer left no unit tests, I'm really, really hesitant to upgrade the project to VS 2010.
That said, my solution for NOT storing binaries in our source control mechanism (SVN) is to use a Nuget repository that I host. Ideally, what I would do is:
WITHOUT upgrading the VS 2008 project, remove the references and instead insert a *.pkg reference
Host the dlls in a NuGet Package on my local NuGet server
Let my Build rip so to speak.
Note that I have Visual Studio 2010 and NuGet installed - I just don't want to run the upgrade wizard. How could I go about doing this?
You can use Sharp Develop 4.1 to install packages in older solutions ( 2005/2008)
Sharp Develop doesn't change the version of Visual Studio.
website
I think Visual Studio 2010 has to be installed with the plugin, but you already did that :-)
Does anyone know the components that need to be installed in order to make the Package Target available via MSBuild.
It's possible to Package using MSBuild on a machine with Visual Studio installed, but not on a build server with only the .NET 4 SDK and Web Deploy 2.0 installed, which results in the following error:
msbuild "Package" does not exist in the project.
It partly comes down to the following missing files on the server:
c:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\*.*
This can of course be resolved by copying the contents of the MSBuild VisualStudio folder to the equivalent directory on the build server, but this is not a manageable solution for server configuration.
All the answers I've read involve having Visual Studio installed or copying the files. Surely it's possible to compile the Web Deploy package without installing Visual Studio?
I have a TeamCity CI server without VS installed building a Web Project configured to also create a deployment package on successful build. However, for the life of me I can't recall if I copied those files manually or if they were installed by some component.
The relevant components I have installed are the following, if you want to give it a shot:
.NET 4.0 SDK;
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Integrated) Redistributable Package;
Visual Studio 2010 SDK; (Not the VS 2010 SDK SP1)
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Visualization & Modeling SDK;
Web Deploy 2.0;
I installed the VS Shell in order to be able to install the VS 2010 SDK which in turn was required in order to install the Visualization & Modeling SDK so that I was able to run T4 transformations on the build server.
With this components and configuring the following MSBuild properties DeployOnBuild=true;DeployTarget=Package to create the deploy package I had no problems, but as I said earlier I may have copied the files manually after giving up all hope of finding a more cleaner solution and now my brain is blocking any memory of such ill action.