My project need to be run with MSbuild 14.0(visual studio 2015) but this is taking only Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild.exe .
I have installed visual studio community 2017,VS 2015 web and Desktop express on my Build Agent.
Capabilities of build agent-
Task Configuration -
This configuration giving me the warning -
[warning]Visual Studio version '14.0' not found. Falling back to version '15.0'.
How can I use MSBuild 14.0 with Visual Studio build task .?? This is running with MSbuild task..
Thanks in Advance ..!!
[warning]Visual Studio version '14.0' not found. Falling back to version '15.0'
Since I do not install Visual Studio 2015 Express for Desktop and Web on my build agent, I am not sure whether Visual Studio 2015 Express for Desktop and Web is compatible with build agent.
But I found a thread about it, you can check the comment on the accepted answer:
That's it! For some reason VS2015 Express does not install the ShellFolder or InstallDir keys! I was worried that the agent script recognised it but refused to register it because we are not allowed to use it for automated builds. I feel more comfortable with it now.
It turns out that is not the full story. When I add the "Visual Studio
Build" task to the process, it now executes, but if I look more
closely at the log, I can see the following message:
"##[warning]Visual Studio was not found. Try installing a supported
version of Visual Studio. See the task definition for a list of
supported versions." And then it falls back to building with MSBuild.
It works because I am building a .sln; let's just hope I don't have to
build a .proj.
So, it seems that Visual Studio 2015 Express is not compatible with build agent. you can try to install the Visual Studio community 2015 instead of it, which I can build it without any issue.
Again, you can check if there is a parameter about Visual Studio on your Capabilities of build agent when you use Visual Studio 2015 Express:
if not, build agent will throw that error.
Hope this helps.
I am trying to replicate my development environment into my build server in order to debug an error that occurs only in the build server, The same solution is compiled with msbuild that is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe in both machines.
In the development machine, the solution is getting compiled successfully while in the build server it fails.
Reading the outputs from msbuild I noticed that in both machines the build is done with different versions of Microsoft build engine
dev machine: 14.0.25420.1
build server:14.0.23107.0
In order to rule out that this error relates to the version
I tried to pass the msbuild from the dev machine to the build server and ran it there which output the build server version.
How can the same msbuild yield different version on a different machine?
How can I update the build engine?
How can the same msbuild yield different version on a different machine?
According to the official blog MSBuild is now part of Visual Studio!:
Starting with Visual Studio 2013, the 2013 version of MSBuild will
ship as a part of Visual Studio instead of the .NET Framework.
So at this moment, MSBuild.exe have the same version of Visual Studio 2015, you can check the version of Visual Studio 2015:
So update the version of Visual Studio on the build server to have the same version MSBuild.exe.
Update for comment:
Is it possible to update msbuild without installing visual studio?
The answer is yes, you can download the Microsoft Build Tools 2015, install it to update msbuild.exe without installing Visual Studio.
Please refer to the document MSBuild is now part of Visual Studio! for details:
The New Microsoft® Build Tools Package
MSBuild is now a component of Visual Studio and will ship with all
SKUs of Visual Studio, including Team Build so if you use Visual
Studio all of your build needs should be covered. We understand that
there are a great number of reasons that you may want to use MSBuild
and other build tools without needing to install Visual Studio so we
are making the tools available as a new standalone package called
Microsoft® Build Tools. The package includes MSBuild and the VB/C#
compilers. The new package can be acquired here on the MSDN Download
Center.
This standalone package is great for build servers requiring fine
grain control of their build process. With this new approach to
evolving MSBuild, you have more control over build behavior and are
not impacted by .NET Framework versions.
Hope this helps.
MSBuild is now provided with Visual Studio and its versioning is aligned with Visual Studio. It is also provided as a standalone installer (Microsoft Build Tools 2013) as seen here: http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads
Due to a bugfix that Microsoft put out in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3, I am trying to find the equivalent build of MSBuild to install on the build server. The version of MSBuild referenced in the download link above is 12.0.21005.1, which equates to the initial version of VS2013.
I can't find anywhere with a version of the Microsoft Build Tools 2013 installer that has been built after Update 3 was released. The VS2013 Update 3 build number is 12.0.30723.0.
Does anyone know where to find this? Or is there an alternative method of copying an updated version of MSBuild from my dev machine (which has VS2013 Update 3) to the build server?
I do not want to install Visual Studio in full on the build server.
Extra Information
The reason I need VS2013 update 3 build tasks is because the SignFile task was updated to take a targetframeworkversion parameter which gets around a bug with signing ClickOnce apps. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms164304.aspx.
Here is one later version:
https://chocolatey.org/packages/microsoft-build-tools/12.0.21005.20140416
Microsoft Build Tools 2013 12.0.21005.20140416
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
Just want to know whether msbuild is built in teamcity or teamcity uses the installed msbuild.exe on your build machine. I have no visual studio installed on my build machine. Little bit confused as where to locate msbuild.exe on machine if no visual studio installed.
Also requirements of msdeploy on client machine. Plz clarify.
TeamCity does not provide the compilers for any language, just the integration support to bring those tools together. For MSBuild specifically, you'll need the .NET framework installed, or Visual Studio:
MSBuild ships as part of the .NET Framework, starting with v2.0 in Visual Studio 2005 and updated in v3.5 with Visual Studio 2008.
Alternatively, you can make use of the Mono support that TeamCity provides to go down that road.