MsTest fails when running unit tests as part of CI using TFS 2008 - visual-studio

Question

My configuration:
VS2010 solution
TFS 2008
Build server - TFS 2008
Build server also has VS2008 Team Suite and VS2010 ultimate installed
TFS 2008 builds my VS2010 solution properly. But when it comes time to run the unit tests I get the following MsTest error.
Using "TestToolsTask" task from
assembly "D:\Program Files\Microsoft
Visual Studio
9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.MSBuildTasks.dll".
Task "TestToolsTask" Command:
d:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual
Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe
/nologo
/searchpathroot:"D:\Builds\App\Source\86\Binaries"
/resultsfileroot:"D:\Builds\App\Source\86\TestResults"
/testcontainer:"D:\Builds\App\Source\86\Binaries\\Tests.dll"
/publish:"http://tfsServer:8080/"
/publishbuild:"vstfs:///Build/Build/26029"
/teamproject:"Proposal" The
"TestToolsTask" task is using
"MSTest.exe" from "d:\Program
Files\Microsoft Visual Studio
10.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe". No platform specified for publish
operation. For switch syntax, type
"MSTest /help"
MSBUILD : warning MSB6006: "MSTest.exe" exited with code 1.
[D:\Builds\App\Source\86\BuildType\TFSBuild.proj]
The previous error was converted to a
warning because the task was called
with ContinueOnError=true. Build
continuing because "ContinueOnError"
on the task "TestToolsTask" is set to
"true". Done executing task
"TestToolsTask" -- FAILED.
I am not sure what is causing MsTest to fail.
Things tried:
- Provided write access to the build folder to the service account that builds the source on the build machine

Answer 1

You can execute a VS2010 build from within TFS2008's MSBuild, but it looks as if it's using Visual Studio 9.0 TestToolsTask (2008) to try to run a Visual Studio 10.0 (2010) test project (MSTest.exe). I'd try tweaking MSBuild to run the TestToolsTask from the "Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0" folder rather than "9.0", so that the entire process is using the same version of the tools. You can override the tools paths in your tfsbuild.proj file's Properties to ensure the correct version of Visual Studio is used to build with - something similar may apply to the test tools.
Alternatively, it's running the VS2010 test tools correctly, but still trying to use a command line that is specific to 2008 - check the settings and see if you can tweak the command line (you may need to override the MS targets files that is running the build if it's a 2008 version). For example in TFS 2010, a lot of command lines changed from using a simple "server:MyServer" to something like "collection:http://MyServer:8080/tfs/MyCollection". You may therefore have to alter the command line to gain full compatibility with the 2010 version of the tool that is now running, even if it still ultimately points at a 2008 server.
My third suggestion (which isn't necessarily very helpful) is to just upgrade to TFS2010 - it's typically a painless install, vastly better than 2008, and will eliminate any difficulties caused by using a hybrid 2008/2010 setup. (If it helps, I was reluctant to upgrade to 2010 because the 2005->2008 upgrade was 8 days of sheer hell. But in comparison the core of the upgrade to 2010 only took a few hours and "just worked" - the install/upgrade process is much improved)

Answer 2

Jason had the correct idea that lead me down to the correct solution.
In my case, I had to update the "Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets" to point to "Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.ProcessComponents.dll" (VS2010 dll) instead of "Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.MSBuildTasks.dll" (VS2008 dll)
I also had to make sure that the PlatformToBuild was specified in the TfsBuild.proj file.
Once these 2 steps were done, UnitTests were being run as part of the CI build using TFS2008 and a VS2010 solution.
I have blogged about the solution in detail here: http://blog.aggregatedintelligence.com/2011/03/vs2010-tfs-2008-and-unit-tests.html