I want to build my solution file using MSBuild but there is one issue. My MSBuild file is located at C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\. So now only if I have my entire solution and projects files in this path am I able to compile the solution. But I cant keep having all my solution and project files in C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\. The location of my solution files maybe at any location in my pc or in TFS, and I'll have to use MSBuild to compile it.
I saw in some forum that I'll have to change the path in regedit in the location
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\3.5, but then it still remains static. If I want to execute a solution file which is in TFS then I'll have to again change the path in regedit.
Is there any alternative to this?
The msbuild.exe is there on my system, too. That is perfectly fine, as it's the task of VS or build tools to handle that. Normally you would either run a build script with C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\ in the path environment, or your build solution knows where to find it. Usually, the msbuild.exe has to be changed only when you retarget to a different framework version (say 4.0). For building on a clean machine, the prerequisites should be set up correctly. So there should be no need to include msbuild.exe in your repository. Probably this would be considered bad practice. Do you have any reason, why you want to have the msbuild.exe versioned?
Related
I'm looking for a way to add an extra build step which will create a backup copy of my entire solution. I want it to do this only if a file in the solution, or the entire solution itself, is not present in the destination folder or flashdrive directory. What would be the easiest way to achieve this? Preferably I would only want this to happen if a file is deemed "newer", and avoid the copy and replace if the file has not changed since the last backup.
You can do this with a batch file using
xcopy /D
which will copy only those files whose source time is newer than the destination time. Or robocopy.
This could recursively copy the entire directory, particular folders, or particular file types. If you're willing to launch your builds from the batch file itself (rather than within visual studio) the batch file has everything you need. Otherwise you might find Solution-wide pre-build event? useful for setting this up to work through Visual Studio. If you follow that process you should be able to take advantage of the Visual Studio Macros for Build Commands like $(SolutionPath).
If you need only those files actually contained in your projects then parsing the solution and project files may be necessary. The .NET framework provides some libraries to help parse solution or project files (SolutionParser). See
Parsing Visual Studio Solution files
That would be a bit of work, but you build a list of only those files contained in your projects and use with xcopy or robocopy.
In the Resources folder of my project, I have many different DLLs from other assemblies in my solution. These DLLs are used as embedded resources so I can have a single EXE without having to have local copies of all the DLLs. What I want to be able to do is have them updated every time I build my entire solution. So for example, if I have AssemblyOne/bin/x86/Debug/Foo.dll, I want the DLL to always copy over to LocalAssembly/Resources/Foo.dll whenever I build the project.
Is there an easy way to do this? I was looking at the post-build-event macros, but none of them would be able to directly reference my "LocalAssembly", which is not the Solution Directory. Also, I'm not sure how I would go about writing a new custom post-build command in a way that the newly copied DLLs would not be an absolute reference to my local machine. Thanks! Please comment for more information and I will edit the question.
You need not access only your solution folder in post build events. The post build scripts run with whatever permissions the compiler had when it ran. Since in Visual Studio things frequently run with Administrator permissions, chances are great you have access to your entire file system. As a result, if you are wanting to copy resources around, you merely need to presume that you are starting the xcopy call in the build destination directory. From there, you can navigate around with normal paths. So if, for example, you needed go up three levels and then into the directory LocalAssemblies, your copy command would look like xcopy Foo.dll ../../../LocalAssemblies.
I've recently coded a little program to determine numbers in a picture and it is reliant on two libraries I've used. (DLLs)
Since my target computer is not allowed to install programs due to security reasons, I need to create a portable .exe.
.NET is installed on the target computer but for some reason VS still does not include the libraries I've used in the exe but instead creates an application folder with a setup.exe, some .DEPLOY files and an application manifest.
I am new to VS and .NET in general so this question could be easy to answer, but I'm asking since I've found nothing useful on StackOverflow neither on google.
You can simply build the application and copy your bin/Debug folder along, but that would still mean you need multiple files.
In order to merge all references into the executable, use ILMerge. Here is some help calling ILMerge.
Basically, after building, you should do something like this:
ilmerge /target:winexe /out:SelfContainedProgram.exe
Program.exe ClassLibrary1.dll ClassLibrary2.dll
There is just one file you need to send along.
One way to do this is to build your application in Release mode (You can pick from Debug or Release in the drop-down). Then go to C:\Projects\[ProjectName]\[ProjectName]\bin\Release (The location of your project folder may vary). You'll see a bunch of files but all you really need are the DLLs, executable, and the config if you used one. You won't have to do any setup if you keep the necessary files in the application's folder, just copy them all to a folder on the target computer, create a shortcut if you want then you're good to go.
You can just copy all your assemblies into any folder you want. Simply chose "Build" from within Visual Studio and copy the files from bin/debug to your destination-folder.
However you have to ensure that all (relative) paths (if existing) still work as you cannot be sure where the user of your program copies the files to.
One simple way could be to use 7zip Packager, it doesn't need any installer. However, VisualStudio method might be more reliable.
I encountered the same issue recently. ILMerge suggestion above is no longer supported. I found Fody.Costura as a modern replacement.
I have a WPF project and a post build event which copy files from a folder outside of the solution into the output directory.
I want to publish my application with Clickonce publish. The only problem is that the copied files are not included in the publish or the manifest.
I tried using MageUI.exe , msbuild /target:publish from the visual studio cmd and even tried to change the project file by hand including a beforepublishevent but none of that worked.
I am open to suggestions, but what I want is to take the output folder and make the installer install the output files. (e.g. install the .net 4 framework and visual c++ runtime libs)
If you don't want them in the solution, but you do want them in ClickOnce then the only possibility is to use an external tool to create the ClickOnce manifests as you can't add non-project files to the ClickOnce output in Visual Studio.
There are two options I know of:
Use MageUI to manage your ClickOnce manifests. You can add additional files to your application in Mage.
You could use some software that I created and sell called ClickOnceMore (www.clickoncemore.net). ClickOnceMore will allow you to add all the files in one directory to your ClickOnce manifests by adding a single folder include. You can also then control which sub folder on the client they get deployed to. It was designed to make scenarios like this simple. You can download a free trial on the web site.
I hope it helps. Apologies for the marketing plug, but I do think ClickOnceMore can solve your problem perfectly.
Instead of copying the files through a post-build event, why don't you include them inside the project, and mark Copy to Output Directory = Copy if Newer?
If they are DLLs, you can add them as reference instead.
There are other options to create installers such as WiX+SharpSetup. It's much more flexible, but also more complicated, and takes more time to create simple installers.
I have a solution with many projects. There is actually a Core project and a few plugins. I changed OutputPath for all plugins so all binaries end up in the Core bin\debug folder. (this is necessary as the Core do not have a reference on plugins, hence it does not "include" plugins binaries when it is compiled.)
So basically my folder structure is as follow:
Solution
MySolution.sln
Plugin1\
Plugin2\
Core\bin\debug
Each plugin OutputPath is "..\Core\bin\debug". When I open the solution Visual Studio creates a folder "Core\bin\debug" in Solution's folder parent as if the relative path starts from .sln file. However when I build the solution the binaries are output to the correct path ("Solution\Core\bin\debug").
Core\bin\debug
It looks like a Visual Studio bug to me, but maybe I overlooked some option somewhere. Any ideas how to resolve this problem ?
PS: I know this not a critical issue as everything build and works fine, however I dislike the idea of meaningless folder hanging around
Rather than changing the output location of the plug-ins, what you could do is create a post-build script (Properties \ Build Events tab) for them that will copy the them to the Core folder. That would prevent the confusion with output folders.
This command line should do the trick for you:
copy "$(TargetPath)" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
If you need to copy .pdb and .config files as well, you can add more lines:
copy "$(TargetPath).pdb" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
copy "$(TargetPath).config" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
If you really want to do it with a single line, this should also work, though it's not as clean:
copy "$(TargetPath)*" "$(SolutionDir)Core\$(OutDir)"
If you're not using the same output path in both the main project and the add-ons, you'll need to replace $(OutDir) with a hard-coded value. If you have them set to target the typical "\bin\Debug" folder (or have just left the defaults in place), then you can get away with using the $(OutDir) value.
Instead of using "..\Core\bin\debug", use "$(SolutionDir)\Core\bin\debug".