Visual Studio required to run MSTest test on Team City Build Server? - visual-studio-2010

We are setting up a Team City build server. On previous VS 2008 projects a full version of Visual Studio has been installed on the build server.
We are now starting a VS 2010 project.
Is it possible to run MSTest tests on the Team City build server without installing Visual Studio?

Download the Visual Studio Agents 2010 ISO: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1334
Mount/Extract the files and copy them to the agent server
Run AutoRun and select to install Microsoft Visual Studio Test Agent 2010
Install using the default settings
Cancel out of the "configuration" dialog (you don't need the actual Agent running, just the installed libraries)
Your MSTest build step should run just fine now.

Related

Question - Why TFS is taking Msbuild 10.0 Instead of Version 14.0? [duplicate]

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.

The same msbulid.exe shows different version on different machines

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.

TeamCity Visual Studio Build Runner Requirement

We're running TeamCity 9.0.3 and have had Visual Studio 2010, 2012 & 2013 full install on our build server for years now.
I know for a fact that we need certain Visual Studio targets in order to deploy our applications but I'm convinced we don't need to have a full Visual Studio installation in order to use the Visual Studio (sln) build runner but can't find any documentation to say whether or not we do need it.
Can anyone show me documentation or verify from their own experience whether or not a full Visual Studio install is needed for this build runner to work?
Edit: I have seen this question:
Does MSbuild require Visual Studio to be installed on the build server?
And mine is not the same question, it's a different topic. That question is asking whether or not Visual Studio is needed to as a prerequisite for the MSBuild build runner. My question pertains to the Visual Studio build runner
Roughly speaking, by installing Windows SDKs you get what's required to build applications.
Windows 7 SDK
Windows 8.1 SDK
Windows 10 SDK
Multi targeting packs are also required if you use that.
Starting from Visual Studio 2013, you also need to install the separate MSBuild 2013. And MSBuild 2015.
C++ might require you to install other bits.
So you will have to go through lots of trials. Most people simply give up and install full VS.
You don't need full Visual Studio Installed for running the build, all you need are the build tools.
In the "Step" you create to build your solution, the dropdown allows you to select which version of Microsoft builds you want to use where you can specify whether you use MSBuild12 or the latest MSBuild14 for VS2015 projects.
All you have to do is make sure that you install the required Microsoft Build tools in this instance:
Build tools for 2010, 2012 and 2013. The TC build step should then try detecting this install by default in C:/Program Files (x86)/MS Build/Build Tool Number/MSBuild.exe
Note: You will have to restart your agent after you install these tools on the Agent Machine for TeamCity to detect the tools.
The Visual Studio (sln) build runner requires the proper version of Microsoft Visual Studio installed on the build agent.
Reference: https://confluence.jetbrains.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=74847254

Is it possible to get mstest with /publish option without needing to install Visual Studio?

I am trying to publish some junit.xml test results into my TFS build - I have transformed them into .trx files and they display fine, so long as I use MSTest.exe with /publish - but I have many users who do not have this version of MSTest installed on their build agents.
According to Command-Line options for publishing test results, the prerequisites for the version of MSTest with the /publish option are:
Visual Studio Ultimate, Visual Studio Premium, or Visual Studio Test Professional
Also, the Test Agents (e.g. Visual Studio 2013 Test Agent) only seem to install the version of mstest without the publish functionality.
Is there a way (for example, can I redistribute?) to get MSTest.exe with the publishing functionality onto TFS build agents without needing to purchase (and install) one of those copies of Visual Studio?

TFS 2008 to Build VS 2010 Projects - what version of VS should go on the TFS Server?

I need to get VS 2010 projects that are using Visual Studio Tests building on a TFS 2008 build server. I didn't want to have to install VS 2010 but am now willing to do so after trying the advice one person posted here:
http://www.richard-banks.org/2009/11/how-to-build-vs2010-solutions-using.html
and some other posts I've found but am still getting errors from the VS Test dlls.
What version of VS 2010 do I need to install to support builds with VS Tests for a TFS 2008 build server?
I was able to get VS 2010 projects to build using TFS 2008 source only by installing Team Foundation Server Build and Team Foundation Server 2010 Build agents. I also had to install Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008.
I followed the advice here as well to set TFS 2008 build agent to use .net 4:
http://www.richard-banks.org/2009/11/how-to-build-vs2010-solutions-using.html

Resources