Why is MSBuild trying to run the projects it's building? - msbuild

Question

I'm currently writing an msbuild script to build a solution I've been working on, as well as run its tests. On my development machine, this works as expected. However, when I try to run the same build script on our build server, I get several failures. I've tracked the source of the problem down to the fact that my build script appears to be trying to run the .exe file associated with my application. This line during the script execution tipped me off, since it doesn't run that command on my dev box:
MSIAuthoring:
Building MSI
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Jenkins\workspace\Test Build\BuildArtifacts\MsiBuildTool.exe" "/MBSBUILD:MsiBuildTool"
I'm fairly new to build scripting, but my understanding is that the build script shouldn't be trying to run my program unless I explicitly tell it to do so. Does anyone know what might be causing this?
For reference, here is my build script:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="RunTests"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
<BuildArtifactsDir Include="BuildArtifacts\"/>
<SolutionFile Include="MsiBuildTool.sln"/>
<NUnitConsole Include="C:\Program Files (x86)\NUnit 2.6.4\bin\nunit-console.exe"/>
<UnitTestsDll Include="BuildArtifacts\MsiBuildToolUnitTests.dll"/>
<TestResultsPath Include="BuildArtifacts\TestResults.xml"/>
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<Configuration Condition="'$(Configuration)' == ''">Release</Configuration>
<Platform Condition="'$(Platform)' == ''">Any CPU</Platform>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="Init" DependsOnTargets="Clean">
<MakeDir Directories="#(BuildArtifactsDir)"/>
</Target>
<Target Name="Clean">
<RemoveDir Directories="#(BuildArtifactsDir)"/>
</Target>
<Target Name ="Compile" DependsOnTargets="Init">
<MSBuild Projects="#(SolutionFile)"
Targets ="Build"
Properties ="OutDir=%(BuildArtifactsDir.FullPath);Configuration=$(Configuration);Platform=$(Platform)"/>
</Target>
<Target Name="RunTests" DependsOnTargets="Compile">
<Exec Command='"#(NUnitConsole)" #(UnitTestsDll) /xml=#(TestResultsPath)'/>
</Target>
</Project>
Update:
After some digging through the output, I found that "MSIAuthoring" step was the result of the Wix# library that I'm using. As described by this thread: https://wixsharp.codeplex.com/discussions/644609#
I disabled the MSIAuthoring step by removing this line in my .csproj files:
<Import Project="..\packages\WixSharp.1.0.22.3\build\WixSharp.targets" Condition="Exists('..\packages\WixSharp.1.0.22.3\build\WixSharp.targets')" />

Answer 1

You're building solution file, thus MSBuild will generate msbuild-xml script first and then will build it. To find why it's being called on build machine but not on your dev machine - follow this advice and obtain generated MSBuild scripts from your dev environment and your build server. Then compare it.
Also enable diagnostic logging (/verbosity:diag in the command line) as Lex Li advised, and you'll see detailed decisions why each target being run or not - grep logs for something like "Conditions A, B, C on target BuildMSI evaluated to False" and this will show you the difference between environments.
It might be some type of post-build script on one of the projects which builds MSI only if it's being run not on dev environment - check actual build script to find where it comes from. Also check that it's really related to your build script, and it's not an extra build step in your Jenkins build configuration.