Using VS2010, I created a Win32 C++ console application called "TfsBuildTestTarget". This is just the default console application created by the wizard. I made no code or project changes, and it builds ok in VS2010 as expected.
Then I created an MSBUILD project file as follows:
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Target Name="Build">
<MSBuild Projects="TfsBuildTestTarget.sln" Targets="TfsBuildTestTarget" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=Win32"/>
</Target>
</Project>
When I run MSBUILD on this project file, I get the following error:
"c:\dev\TfsBuildTestTarget\testBuild.proj"
(default target) (1 ) ->
"c:\dev\TfsBuildTestTarget\TfsBuildTestTarget.sln"
(TfsBuildTe stTarget target) (2) ->
(TfsBuildTestTarget target) ->
c:\dev\TfsBuildTestTarget\TfsBuildTestTarget\TfsBuildTestTarget.vcxproj(3,14):
error MSB4066: The attribute "Label" in element is unrecognized.
The referenced line, in the (VS-generated) vcxproj file looks like this:
<ItemGroup Label="ProjectConfigurations">
The reference for the MSBuild item element does not include a Label attribute.
What is going on here? Why is VS2010 generating project files that do not appear to be compatible with MSBuild? Is there a way for me to build this solution as part of an MSBuild project without manually tweaking the XML?
Make sure you are using the .NET 4.0 version of MSBuild.
If you use the .NET 3.5 version of MSBuild against a VS2010 solution that includes a vcxproj file you will get this error.
I made a c++ console application like you specified and ran it using both .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 MSBuild versions. I got the error using 3.5 and it worked using 4.0.
The Label attribute is new in .NET 4.0. It can be added to ItemGroup, PropertyGroup, Target, and other elements. The label attribute is not mentioned in the online help for msbuild but is defined int he msbuild 4.0 schema files.
I was using the "Open Visual Studio Command Prompt (2008)" entry of Start Menu to build, and it gave me the same error, but when I switched to "Open Visual Studio Command Prompt (2010)", I had the problem miracolously solved.
Related
I have a VS2017 csharp project and the .csproj file looks like the following:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<MyItem Include="file.dat" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<PrepareResourcesDependsOn>
$(PrepareResourcesDependsOn);
MyCompileTarget
</PrepareResourcesDependsOn>
<CoreCompileDependsOn>
$(CoreCompileDependsOn);
MyCompileTarget
</CoreCompileDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="MyCompileTarget" Inputs="#(MyItem)" Outputs="#(MyItem->'%(FileName).out')">
...
</Target>
</Project>
Where MyCompileTarget is a target that generates the file.out from file.dat (in the actual code the incremental build target and properties are in a target file automatically included via a NuGet package).
The issue is that if I change file.dat and press on Build, no target is executed at all, (but MyTarget is correctly executed with Rebuild or when running with msbuild). I would expect the MyCompileTarget to be executed so that the file.out file is updated.
The same issue occurs if I use BeforeBuild or AfterBuild instead of PrepareResourcesDependsOn etc.
It seems that Visual Studio incremental build won't start unless some file in #(Compile) or #(EmbeddedResource) is changed. Indeed, if I add the following
<EmbeddedResource>file.dat</EmbeddedResource>
the incremental build works as expected (but clearly I do not want to embeed the file.dat into the generated assembly).
Is it possible to force Visual Studio to enable incremental build if file.dat is modified, and if the corresponding generated file is older than file.dat or it does not exist?
Note: the same issue occurs using VS2015, with .NET CORE or .NET FRAMEWORK.
Also, incremental build will be triggered if I change a csharp file, and it will therefore trigger MyTask, but only if file.dat is newer than the generated file (as expected).
Thanks in advance,
Fabio.
Is it possible to force Visual Studio to enable incremental build if file.dat is modified
You can set the property DisableFastUpToDateCheck to true in the project file to disable FastUpToDateCheck for Visual Studio build manager:
<PropertyGroup>
<DisableFastUpToDateCheck>True</DisableFastUpToDateCheck>
</PropertyGroup>
Check MSDN about DisableFastUpToDateCheck:
A boolean value that applies to Visual Studio only. The Visual Studio
build manager uses a process called FastUpToDateCheck to determine
whether a project must be rebuilt to be up to date. This process is
faster than using MSBuild to determine this. Setting the
DisableFastUpToDateCheck property to true lets you bypass the Visual
Studio build manager and force it to use MSBuild to determine whether
the project is up to date
Update:
Also, we can set the UpToDateCheckInput to the item:
<UpToDateCheckInput Include="file.dat" />
Disabling the VS fast up-to-date check will make your builds much slower. Don't do it!
Instead, make sure the up-to-date check knows about the items in your project and how they relate to build. There are two kinds of item you can add to your project for this:
UpToDateCheckInput for inputs
UpToDateCheckBuilt for outputs
In your case you need the second option as there is both an input and an output. You need to ensure that if you delete the output, it is rebuilt.
<PropertyGroup>
<UpToDateCheckBuilt Original="#(MyItem)" Include="#(MyItem->'%(FileName).out')">
</PropertyGroup>
For more information, see the documentation:
https://github.com/dotnet/project-system/blob/main/docs/up-to-date-check.md
Has anyone seen this error and know how to fix it?
The "TransformXml" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll.
Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
Confirm that the declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask.
I read elsewhere that the problem is when you don't have SQL Server installed. But I do have SQL Express 2012 x64 installed with SP1. I am also running VS 2013 Professional.
I have ran this exact same solution in VS 2012 express with no problems.
The answers provided by Dai Bok and emalamisura work fine as long as you use Visual Studio 2012.
For VS 2013 this fails as well. In order to make this work with all versions of Visual Studio you should:
Open the project file (.csproj) of the project failing to load
Search for <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets" />
Change it to <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets" />
Reload the project
That will set the correct version of Visual Studio dynamically and properly.
To get mine to work, I just copied my v10.0 folder and renamed it to v11.0, and things seems to work well from then on. That's the quick fix for now.
As this is probably not the best solution, and although it works, I was going to try installing the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4, but it is taking to long to download.
To fix the issue,
Find the Visual studio Installer in your computer
Click or tap to start the installer, and then select Modify.
From the Individual Components screen, select Asp.net and web development tools and then select Modify/Install.
This solved the issue as it creates the dll's in the mentioned path.
I've been combating this problem on our build server for several days, so I figured I'd document the resolution I came to. First, my build server has the web publishing extensions installed. I can use the TransformXml task to my heart's content inside of a web application project.
To use it outside of a web application project, I tried to add the UsingTask element to my project and point it to the right place using ms build properties (as Benjamin demonstrated). However, they weren't there on my build server (those with easy access to the file system of their build server can probably skip this and just install the relevant package to Visual Studio). I even went so far as to hard code visual studio versions, but it always dropped that error on me.
I finally gave up, pulled the DLLs from my local PC:
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll
I uploaded them to source control and added that folder to my build's workspace (Edit Build Definition -> Source Settings -> Source Control Folder). From there, I don't even need to reference the folder -- here's what my UsingTask looks like:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
Now I can use the TransformXml task to my heart's content from any project.
For VS2019
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(MSBuildToolsVersion
I replaced MSBuildToolsVersion with VisualStudioVersion.
Because there are only v12.0, v14.0 and v15.0 in my VisualStudio folder, I edit my project file and change the reference path from v10.0 to v14.0. Then the project builds successfully.
Before:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
After:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
Solutions provided seem to work for using VS as an IDE, but if you use DotnetCore via CLI or on a unix based system this does not work.
I found that the following seem to work
<PropertyGroup>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="'$(XmlTransformDllPath)' == '' AND '$(MSBuildRuntimeType)' == 'core'">$(MSBuildSDKsPath)/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish/tools/net5.0/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="'$(XmlTransformDllPath)' == '' AND '$(MSBuildRuntimeType)' != 'core'">$(MSBuildSDKsPath)/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish/tools/net472/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="!Exists($(XmlTransformDllPath))">$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
</PropertyGroup>
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(XmlTransformDllPath)" />
This solution takes into account netcore, full .net
For some reason MSBuildSDKsPath and MSBuildExtensionsPath32 are different on windows when using CLI vs VS2019
CLI:
MSBuildSDKsPath = C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.103\Sdks
MSBuildExtensionsPath32 = C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.103
Vs2019
MSBuildSDKsPath = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Sdks
MSBuildExtensionsPath32 = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild
Which on my Mac returns /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/5.0.201
Only problem I see is with the tools/net5.0 part of the name which changes ever release
Also created https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/16469 and answers this on The "TransformXml" task was not found (error MSB4036) on TeamCity build
The correct answer to this is to unload the project in question and then edit the csproj file, look for an entry where they are referencing the 10.0 path and change it to point to 11.0 instead.
You need two things to make it work:
1) Install Visual Studio Build Tools (You don't need the whole Visual Studio, only the VS Build Tools) with selected "Web development build tools" option on your build server
https://www.visualstudio.com/pl/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=BuildTools&rel=15
2) Ensure that path to Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll is correct
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(MSBuildToolsVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
For me it started working just by adding reference to the NuGet package MSBuild.Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.targets v14.0.0.3
Even no need to add UsingTask element to the project file as it mentioned by the package author
https://github.com/pdonald/nuget-webtargets
Just install the NuGet package. The package automatically sets the
$(VSToolsPath) property to use the targets file in the tools folder.
And then I was able to use TransformXml and other tasks, defined in the package, for instance to transform app.config
<Target Name="app_config_AfterCompile" AfterTargets="AfterCompile" Condition="Exists('app.$(Configuration).config')">
<!--Generate transformed app config in the intermediate directory-->
<TransformXml Source="app.config" Destination="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).config" Transform="app.$(Configuration).config" />
<!--Force build process to use the transformed configuration file from now on.-->
<ItemGroup>
<AppConfigWithTargetPath Remove="App.config" />
<AppConfigWithTargetPath Include="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).config">
<TargetPath>$(TargetFileName).config</TargetPath>
</AppConfigWithTargetPath>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
Just in case someone is using an SDK-style csproj, you can achieve this without having to install Visual Studio on the build server.
First you should install the SlowCheetah nuget package to your project. Once you install it, you'll see the following in your SDK-style project.
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah" Version="3.2.20">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
Then make sure you add the GeneratePathProperty="true" attribute (see below). This is very important for the next part because it'll help you grab the path of where the nuget package is restored on your machine. George Dangl explains it in his article here.
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah" Version="3.2.20" GeneratePathProperty="true">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
Import the SlowCheetah targets into your project:
<Import Project="$(PkgMicrosoft_VisualStudio_SlowCheetah)\build\Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah.targets" />
You can now use an target command (in this case after publish) to apply some custom transformations. If you need to, you can always hard-code the file names below instead of using the variables in the below example.
<Target Name="AfterPublishs" AfterTargets="Publish">
<TransformTask Source="Web.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).MyCustomTransformFile.config" Destination="$(PublishDir)\Web.config" />
</Target>
If you haven't used SlowCheetah before, I recommend checking it out. They have a Visual Studio extension that will make it easier for you to preview transform files.
I work with Visual Studio 2012, and I just switched my deployment tools from NSIS to InstallShield. I've added new projects to my solution for InstallShield installers. When I build in Visual Studio (the IDE) I've no errors, no warnings and I'm happy.
Now, I want to have a script that build the full solution without launching the IDE. But when I run MSBuild in the command line, like that
MSBuild MySolution.sln /t:Build /p:Configuration=Release
I get following error MSB4062
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\InstallShield\2012SpringLimited\InstallShield.targets(21,3): error MSB4062: The "Microsoft.Build.Tasks.AssignProjectConfiguration" task could not be loaded from the assembly Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v3.5. Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v3.5' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. Confirm that the <UsingTask> declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask.
My searches lead me to the conclusion that I must buy the Premier Edition of InstallShield to take profit of ISCmdBuild. But I can't afford it, and I think there might be another solution.
Any idea?
Using Fusion logging the MSBuild checks for the DLL here: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v4.0.30319/Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v3.5.DLL.
I copied
c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v3.5.dll
to
c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v3.5.dll
And the error is gone.
Alternatively open your *.isproj file and change from "3.5" to "4.0" on top on the tag:
<Project ToolsVersion="3.5"...> --> <Project ToolsVersion="4.0" ...>
Another solution is to force MSBuild to use the x86 platform. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/1074699/870604
If you're building from a TFS build, this can be configured from the build options:
I found the solution. Use the command devenv.exe instead of MSBuild.exe. It will be similar to launching Visual Studio and clicking the Build button. That's all!
devenv.exe MySolution.sln /build Release
I have a custom MSBuild task which among other things adds embedded resources to other projects in the solution. After adding the resources I'd like to then build those projects, but found I can't get this working within Visual Studio.
To test, I stripped out the custom task entirely and redefined a simple AfterBuild target in the web project of a Silverlight solution. The target uses the MSBuild task to build the Silverlight application project in the solution, and looks like this:
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<PropertyGroup>
<LinkedProject>..\SilverlightApplication1\SilverlightApplication1.csproj</LinkedProject>
</PropertyGroup>
<MSBuild Condition="'$(LinkedProject)' != '' "
Projects="$(LinkedProject)"
Targets="Build"
Properties="CustomFlag=true" >
</MSBuild>
</Target>
The odd thing is that this works perfectly when using MSBuild from the command line, yet does not work in Visual Studio when building the web project. I thought this might be some sort of Silverlight problem, and had the task build a .NET class library project instead, but the result was the same - it worked from the command line but not within VS. In VS there's no actual error - it's just that the Csc task does not compile the assembly and generates no output.
What do I need to do to get this working within Visual Studio?
Pass the 'UseHostCompilerIfAvailable=false' property to the MSBuild task.
It looks like Visual Studio breaks badly if csc is invoked from a MSBuild task as it reuses the initial project build settings for its in-process host compiler. In my case, I was building the same project twice - default build was using target framework v3.5, with a AfterBuild MSBuild task specifying v4.0. I ended up with the same issue - csc appeared to run but produced no output. I think what was happening was that with the UseHostCompilerIfAvailable property set to true, csc was calling the hosted compiler which reused my initial project settings, so even though the command line showed csc "building" my v4.0 assembly, the host compiler was simply overwriting the v3.5 one I had just built!
Change Visual Studio verbosity to detailed and check build log. I think that CoreBuild is not executed if your files have not changed, so you could try to use AfterCompile instead of AfterBuild.
I have a Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint project. If I choose 'Package' from the project menu, a .wsp file is generated. How can I invoke the same build from command line (i.e. what /target is required for MSBuild)?
I got it to work, finally. The tricky part is the fact that the SharePoint targets do not exist when MSBuild loads the .sln file, you have to load the individual .csproj files.
set msbuild="C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe"
set config=Debug
set outdir="C:\out\"
%msbuild% /p:Configuration=%config% /m ../My.SharePoint.Project/My.SharePoint.Projectcsproj /t:Package /p:BasePackagePath=%outdir%
This is also a useful document here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ff622991.aspx
"To generate packages when building in
TFS 2010, set the parameter
/p:IsPackaging=True on MSBuild"
Also to package project with msbuild you can use target Package:
Define new target "BuildAndPackage"
<Target Name="BuildAndPackage">
<CallTarget Targets="Build"/>
<CallTarget Targets="Package"/>
</Target>
Use new target in build process:
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" DefaultTargets="BuildAndPackage">
But this approach not recommended because it may cause errors in TFS Build process..
Set the MSBuild's verbosity to 'maximum' and you should see what is called from the build console.
In VS2010 of course :)