I'm trying to automate deploying a Web Api 2 project with Visual Studio 2013. I've made a publish profile named "Test" shown below
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
This file is used by the publish/package process of your Web project. You can customize the behavior of this process
by editing this MSBuild file. In order to learn more about this please visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=208121.
-->
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<WebPublishMethod>FileSystem</WebPublishMethod>
<LastUsedBuildConfiguration>Release</LastUsedBuildConfiguration>
<LastUsedPlatform>x86</LastUsedPlatform>
<SiteUrlToLaunchAfterPublish />
<LaunchSiteAfterPublish>True</LaunchSiteAfterPublish>
<ExcludeApp_Data>False</ExcludeApp_Data>
<publishUrl>C:\DbServiceDeploy</publishUrl>
<DeleteExistingFiles>True</DeleteExistingFiles>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
Even though it has the line <LastUsedBuildConfiguration>Release</LastUsedBuildConfiguration> it seems like Visual Studio is publishing my debug build. I'm calling msbuild like so
"C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe" C:\somefolder\Myproj.csproj /p:
DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=Test
This excellent blog post led me to find the answer http://sedodream.com/2012/10/27/MSBuildHowToSetTheConfigurationProperty.aspx . I'll summarize in case the link dies: when a build is kicked off MsBuild evaluates the properties once and uses that value for the remainder of the build. Since the Configuration property was resolving to Debug MsBuild was using that as the Configuration to publish.
TLDR;
Pass the configuration on the command line, add
/p:Configuration=Release
to the command line call
I've been perusing through similar questions on stack overflow and could not find a specific or definitive enough answer to this question:
I am currently using MSVS 2013 Ultimate, and have separately downloaded MS build tools 2013 as well. I am trying to install some npm modules that use the earlier platform toolset of MSBuild to compile and after following instructions from MSDN on how to Modify the Target Framework to a different platform, those did not help me successfully download the packages either. My current project is dealing with javascript and I'm not using visual studio in the near future, so I'm extremely flexible in terms of changing its configuration settings at the moment.
I am afraid that I'll have to resort to downloading VS 2012 in order to do this, unless someone found a clear cut alternative.
I am currently running everything on Windows 8 Enterprise x64.
Thanks in advance for all the help.
You can make use of the ImportBefore extension points for MsBuild: add propertysheets to
$(VCTargetsPath)\Platforms\$(Platform)\ImportBefore
and add properties to them forcing the PlatformToolset irregardless of what is set in the vcproj files. With VS2013 it is a bit more difficult to do this compared to VS2012 (I used this trick there to globally build everything using the v110_xp toolset) but it still works.
Suppose you are on a 64bit machine and want to override settings for all C++ projects for the Win32 platform, add a property sheet called override_platformtoolset.props (the name doesn't matter, as long as it ends with .props) to the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120\Platforms\Win32\ImportBefore\Default with this content:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<PlatformToolSet>v110</PlatformToolSet>
<DefaultPlatformToolset>v110</DefaultPlatformToolset>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="ShowOverrideInfo1" BeforeTargets="Build">
<Message Text="Overriding PlatformToolset!" Importance="high"/>
</Target>
</Project>
Then add another file called override_platformtoolset to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120\Platforms\Win32\ImportBefore with this content:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<PlatformToolSet>v110</PlatformToolSet>
<ToolsetPropsFound>false</ToolsetPropsFound>
<MinSupportedVCTargetsVersion>v110</MinSupportedVCTargetsVersion>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="ShowOverrideInfo2" BeforeTargets="Build">
<Message Text="Overriding PlatformToolset!" Importance="high"/>
</Target>
</Project>
The targets are just there to make sure you put the files in the correct location: if you build now, you should see the Overriding PlatformToolset! message twice (and see that cl.exe and link.exe are invoked from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\bin). Else something is wrong.
If you wonder how/why this works inspect Microsoft.Cpp.Defaults.props and Microsoft.Cpp.props.props in C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120.
From a brand new console application template in visual studio, I edited the .csproj to build another project like this:
...
<Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<MSBuild Projects=".\other.mproj"/>
</Target>
...
Where other.mproj is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="Build">
<Target Name="Build">
<Message Text="kikou" />
</Target>
</Project>
After a while I discovered that modifying the content of other.mproj (for instance, by introducing errors or changing text kikou to something else) would not be taken into account unless unloading/reloading the project in visual studio.
Building from the command line with 'msbuild myproj.csproj' immediatly detect changes in 'other.mproj'. So it all looks like visual studio is working from a cached version of other.mproj file.
Why is visual studio caching this other script (which is even not included to the project), and how can I solve this issue ?
Update: I also tried this UseHostCompilerIfAvailable, it doesn't work.
NB1: I didn't add other.mproj as a project reference in the .csproj because it is not a .NET project at all (it just creates resources files for the .csproj from other inputs before the build)
NB2: I'm using VS2010 (10.0.10219.1SP1Rel + MSBuild 4.0.30319.1)
Visual Studio caches all MSBuild files, this is done for performance reasons. You will not be able to have an MSBuild only way around this. It may be possible to achieve this via a VS add-in but I'm not 100% sure of that.
Build started 16/11/2011 9:24:11 AM.
Project "C:\Builds\1\NetTellerMigration\NetTellerMigrationBuild\Sources\blah.sln" on node 1 (default targets).
ValidateSolutionConfiguration:
Building solution configuration "Development|Default".
MSBUILD : warning MSB4078: The project file "blah\blah.dtproj" is not supported by MSBuild and cannot be built. [C:\Builds\1\NetTellerMigration\NetTellerMigrationBuild\Sources\blah.sln]
Done Building Project "C:\Builds\1\NetTellerMigration\NetTellerMigrationBuild\Sources\blah.sln" (default targets).
Build succeeded.
"C:\Builds\1\NetTellerMigration\blahBuild\Sources\blah.sln" (default target) (1) ->
(blah_b target) ->
MSBUILD : warning MSB4078: The project file "blah\blah.dtproj" is not supported by MSBuild and cannot be built. [C:\Builds\1\NetTellerMigration\NetTellerMigrationBuild\Sources\blah.sln]
1 Warning(s)
0 Error(s)
Time Elapsed 00:00:00.42
I currently have tfs2010 installed with SqlExpress and im trying 'unsucessfully' to implement continuous-integration against a SSIS package. My aim is to create a build triggered by a code checkin. I have a build definition to doso but the warning shown above is displayed and no '.dtsx' files are copied to the build directory?
I believe its something to do with the build agent targeting v4 of the .net framework but I could be wrong. Anyway, any help would be much appreciated from anyone who has experience this problem before.
MSBuild can't build SSIS projects (.dtproj) because the format of these projects is pre-VS2010. The best thing to do here is to have MSBuild shell out to the SSIS project. You can create an empty C# project to do this. Then, open the .csproj file for the new project in a text editor and set the BeforeBuild target to the following:
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<!-- Build the analysis SSIS project -->
<Exec Command=""$(Registry:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\#InstallDir)\devenv.exe" blah\blah.dtproj /Build" />
</Target>
Adjust the blah/blah.dtproj path for your project. This will run the VS2008 version of devenv to build the SSIS project.
Below is a sample of what the whole .csproj file might look like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="Build">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputPath>Bin</OutputPath>
</PropertyGroup>
<Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<!-- Build the analysis SSIS project -->
<Exec Command=""$(Registry:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\#InstallDir)\devenv.exe" blah\blah.dtproj /Build" />
</Target>
</Project>
I had to slightly tweek my target to get it working:
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<!-- Build the analysis SSIS project -->
<Exec Command=""$(Registry:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\#InstallDir)devenv.exe" "$(SolutionPath)" /Build "Release|Any CPU" /project projectFileName.dtproj" />
</Target>
I've got an x86 Visual Studio solution with many project files in it. Some of the DLL files are designed to work as plug-ins to other applications on a user's system.
We're expanding some of the DLL files to be able to support 64-bit applications. I'd like to set up the solution/projects so that just hitting "Build" will build both the x86 and x64 versions of those DLL
files. The solution contains both C++ and C# projects.
I realize that "Batch Build" is capable of building both, though it would be more convenient if developers could just click the same button as they have previously and have all of the output DLL files generated.
Here are a couple of the modifications that I've tried to a test project, but that I haven't gotten to work:
I've tried modifying the <Target Name="AfterBuild"> to try:
<Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition=" '$(Platform)' == 'x86' ">
<PropertyGroup>
<Platform>x64</Platform>
<PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>
</PropertyGroup>
<CallTarget Targets="Build"/>
</Target>
But that results in the following error:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.Common.targets(565,5): error MSB4006: There is a circular dependency in the target dependency graph involving target "Build".
I think my conditions will prevent infinite recursion, but I understand how MSBuild could not see it that way.
I've also tried:
<Project DefaultTargets="MyBuild86;MyBuild64" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="3.5">
...
<Target Name="MyBuild86">
<PropertyGroup>
<Platform>x86</Platform>
<PlatformTarget>x86</PlatformTarget>
</PropertyGroup>
<CallTarget Targets="Build"/>
</Target>
<Target Name="MyBuild64">
<PropertyGroup>
<Platform>x64</Platform>
<PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>
</PropertyGroup>
<CallTarget Targets="Build"/>
</Target>
But my DefaultTargets appears to be ignored from within the Visual Studio IDE.
Last, I've tried creating a separate project that imports the first project:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
<Platform>x64</Platform>
<PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>
<ProductVersion>9.0.30729</ProductVersion>
<SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion>
<OutputPath>..\$(Configuration)\x64\</OutputPath>
<ProjectGuid>{A885CAC3-2BBE-4808-B470-5B8D482CFF0A}</ProjectGuid>
</PropertyGroup>
<Import Project="BuildTest.csproj" />
</Project>
And this so far has shown the most promise. However, Visual Studio seems to ignore my OutputPath setting from this new project and instead outputs the EXE/DLL file to the path specified in the original project. There isn't any PropertyGroup block that I can see that is being executed in the original project to override this, so I'm not sure what's happening.
We do something similar to build core assemblies for .NET Compact Framework.
Try this:
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<MSBuild Condition=" '$(Platform)' == 'x86' " Projects="$(MSBuildProjectFile)" Properties="Platform=x64;PlatFormTarget=x64" RunEachTargetSeparately="true" />
</Target>
Importing a project in such manner works for me in Visual Studio 2010:
TestProject64.vcxproj
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Import Project="TestProject.vcxproj" />
<ItemGroup Label="ProjectConfigurations">
<ProjectConfiguration Include="Release|x64">
<Configuration>Release</Configuration>
<Platform>x64</Platform>
</ProjectConfiguration>
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup Label="Globals">
<ProjectGuid>{B7D61F1C-B413-4768-8BDB-31FD464AD053}</ProjectGuid>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
TestProject64.vcxproj.filters
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Import Project="TestProject.vcxproj.filters" />
</Project>
TestProject.vcxproj has two configurations defined inside: Release|x86 and Release|x64. As you can see, TestProject64.vcxproj has only the Release|x64 configuration. Defining of at least one configuration in TestProject64.vcxproj is necessary, otherwise Visual Studio will not be able to add TestProject64.vcxproj to a solution.
Now it's possible to include both TestProject.vcxproj and TestProject64.vcxproj to the same solution and build Release|x86 and Release|x64 at the same time.
I think the best way of doing this is to invoke MSBuild from the command line. It shouldn't need editing of MSBuild files. Just run
msbuild myproj.sln /p:Configuration="Debug|Win32"
msbuild myproj.sln /p:Configuration="Debug|x64"
I assume that if a developer is using Visual Studio then they'll only be generating the DLL files so they can debug with them, and that you have a separate build process if you're actually deploying the DLL files.
For C++, and if it's a project whose files/settings don't change often, one way to do it is create two projects within the solution, with both projects referring to the same source files. Then, in x64 builds, set one project to build 64-bit and the other 32-bit. (In x86 builds, set one as 32-bit and turn off the other.)
We've been using this for a while and it works fine.
Of course, you have to be careful that any changes you make to one are also made to its copy. i.e. if you add/remove a file or change its build setting, you have to do it in two places. Source-code changes still only need to be done once, because there's still only one copy of each source file.
And, of course, you may decide that doing this is more complex/risky than switching away from using the IDE. In our case it's worked really well, though.
You are not going to be able to do this with the UI of Visual Studio. For this you will need to hack the MSBuild files.
Try this link from MSDN for MSBuild Overview
I would suggest to create a dummy C++ Makefile project and then invoke MSBuild twice from it:
msbuild myproj.sln /p:Configuration="Debug|Win32"
msbuild myproj.sln /p:Configuration="Debug|x64"
Perhaps I've missed the point of this discussion.
Using Visual Studio, go to menu Build → Configuration Manager. In the Active Solution Platform drop down, select "New...", and a New Solution Platform dialog appears. Select x64 and accept the default Copy From. Close the dialog and the Configuration Manager.
Now open menu Build → Batch Build. Check those configurations you want to build and build them. You will find the x64 build executables separate from the Win32 executable files.
You can verify that these are what was intended by right clicking on the executable files, selecting Properties, and select the Compatibility tab. In the dropdown window you can check to see what operating systems the executable file can be run in.
Obviously, there may be some other tweaking you might have to do to get all the output files in their proper places, but this method seem somewhat simpler than fooling with build than those described above.
I ran into this problem with a project running in Visual Studio 2008 (on Windows XP) (32-bit) and also Visual Studio 2010 (on Windows 7) (64-bit).
The solution I used was to use the $(PROGRAMFILES) variable. It resolved correctly on both machines.