Where can I find WcfTestClient.exe (part of Visual Studio) - wcf

The MSDN docs state that I can find the WCF Test Client in:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\
but it seems like a lot of stuff is missing from there, including WcfTestClient.exe.
What do I need to install?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio (Your Version Here)\Common7\IDE

VS 2022 Professional:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Professional\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2022 Community:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2022 Enterprise:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2019 Professional:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2019 Community:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2019 Enterprise:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2017 Community:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2017 Professional:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2017 Enterprise:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2015:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2013:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe
VS 2012:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe

The prerequisite to have WcfTestClient is to have Windows Communication Foundation component installed. If WcfTestClient is missing, install it by modifying Visual Studio:
Control Panel > Apps & Features > Visual Studio (your version)
In Visual Studio Installer, click on Modify, choose Individual components tab and then select (see below screenshot):
☑ Windows Communication Foundation
Click on Modify and voilà, application will be on your disk.
If you want to use WcfTestClient with no Visual Studio, see answer(s) on: How can the Wcf Test Client be used without Visual Studio?

In addition, one can add this to the Visual Studio Tools menu.
Tools => External Tools.
And then in the Command box enter the path for WcfTestClient.exe.
In my case
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe

FYI - I could not find WcfTestClient.exe under any of the listed file paths. It turns out it needed to be installed by Visual Studio Installer. When you launch the installer and modify your version of VS, make sure Windows Communication Foundation is checked under Optional. It may seem obvious, but it wasn't to me and therefore might not be obvious to everyone else.

You won't find the component if it hasn't been installed.
In Visual Studio 2019 go to:
Tools > Get Tools and Features > Select the Individual Components tab > Type wcf in the search box and install it.
This installs the component, and you should be able to load it from the command prompt or other methods suggested in the answer.

If you use "Developer Command Prompt" you can just type WcfTestClient to start it or type where wcftestclient to find the location.

For Visual studio 2013, Windows 8...
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe

New Direction on VS 2017 (x64 systems)
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\*your lic type*\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe"

Mine was here:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE"

For 64 bit OS, its here (If .Net 4.5) : C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE

Related

VSI Folder in missing in Visual Studio 2022

I am trying to find
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2022\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\VSI\DisableOutOfProcBuild\DisableOutOfProcBuild.exe
but the folder
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2022\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\VSI
is missing.
What should I include in the installer?
Ok, found the answer. I had to install Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Projects 2022.

Invalid static method invocation syntax: "[MSBuild]::IsRunningFromVisualStudio()"

After upgrading to Visual Studio 2017 15.5 none of my project will load correctly. All are marked unavailable.
I'm getting the following error for every project:
error : Invalid static method invocation syntax: "[MSBuild]::IsRunningFromVisualStudio()". Method '[MSBuild]::IsRunningFromVisualStudio' not found. Static method invocation should be of the form: $([FullTypeName]::Method()), e.g. $([System.IO.Path]::Combine(a, b)). C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets
Reloading project produces this error prompt:
Adding new projects produce this error prompt:
1. Close all running instances of Visual Studio 2017
2. Launch (as Administrator) "Developer Command Prompt for VS 2017"
3. Type the following commands (replace Professional with your edition, either Enterprise or Community, or adjust the path accordingly):
gacutil /i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Framework.dll"
gacutil /i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.dll"
gacutil /i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Engine.dll"
gacutil /i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Conversion.Core.dll"
gacutil /i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Core.dll"
gacutil /i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core.dll"
4. Restart Visual Studio 2017
The solution, provided by henkmollema in this thread: https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/issues/2775 was to start the visual studio installer from the start menu and run a repair.
It seems from the responses to this issue on github that it is often caused by having an older version of MSBuild in the GAC. This will then be used in preference to the bundled version that ships with the updated version of VS.
The solution is to remove the old version of Microsoft.Build from the gac.
Find the gac'd versions:
gacutil /l | findstr Microsoft.Build
Look for any of version 15.x.x.x and then remove them:
gacutil /u "Microsoft.Build, Version=15.{version_found}"
Restart Visual Studio
It may also be necessary to remove the related assemblies Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core, Microsoft.Build.Framework and Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Core of that version.
After installing the latest Visual Studio Version via the Updater, I received the same error messages.
The issue was resolved, at least in my case, by rebooting after installing the Visual Studio update.
Besides the assemblies mentioned in Yuriy Oleynik's answer, I found I need to add an additional assembly (see the last command below) in gac (I'm using VS 2019):
gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\Microsoft.Build.dll"
gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\Microsoft.Build.Conversion.Core.dll"
gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\Microsoft.Build.Engine.dll"
gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\Microsoft.Build.Framework.dll"
gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Core.dll"
gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core.dll"
gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\System.Collections.Immutable.dll"
I've come accross this problem in vs2019 with Framework Core 3.1. The problem was two fold.
First of all i've updated my VS2019 to the last version, the project was loading, but I got compilation errors.
I've opened C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL and removed all microsoft.buid.* except Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core, Microsoft.Build.Utilities.v4.0 and Microsoft.Build.Utilities.v4.0.resources
And all worked
I had this problem with Visual Studio 2017 on a Windows 7 PC on a corporate network. I tried to fix the issue in the following ways:
restarting the computer/Visual Studio several times (as mentioned by an answer here).
upgrading to the newest version of Visual Studio found in "Extensions and Updates"
Using the "Repair" option in the installer.
Uninstalling it completely by uninstalling the "Visual Studio Installer" (Control Panel → Add remove programs), and then re-installing it.
I noticed that on a colleague's computer, which never had VS2017 installed, when I installed VS2017 Community Edition version 15.5, there was no issue.
At this point, I have to admit defeat. The only simple solution is to replace the line in the file:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets
There is a line near the end of the file:
<NuGetRestoreTargets Condition="'$(NuGetRestoreTargets)'=='' and '$([MSBuild]::IsRunningFromVisualStudio())'=='true'">$(MSBuildToolsPath32)\..\..\..\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\NuGet\NuGet.targets</NuGetRestoreTargets>
just replace the $([MSBuild]::IsRunningFromVisualStudio()) with true:
<NuGetRestoreTargets Condition="'$(NuGetRestoreTargets)'=='' and 'true'=='true'">$(MSBuildToolsPath32)\..\..\..\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\NuGet\NuGet.targets</NuGetRestoreTargets>
however this only allows the projects to load up - you cannot use it to build the project.
I am going to ask for my machine to be re-imaged so I can just download and install Visual Studio from scratch.
(I hope Microsoft come up with a fix soon.)

MSBuild in Visual Studio 2017: Cannot set path within Command Prompt

I'm trying to have MSBuild for Visual Studio 2017 run in my PATH on Windows 10. I recently completed this task on another machine that was using Visual Studio 2015 no problem using this command:
"%comspec% /k""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\Tools\VsMSBuildCmd.bat""
I noticed that for Visual Studio 2017, VsMSBuildCmd.bat is within C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\Tools
So I tried running the %comspec% command above with this folder but it's not working.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I was able to get MSBuild up and running even after I typed the comspec statement above with the error appearing my command prompt. I'm not really sure if that is a Windows 10 bug.

WebSocket4Net - The software is missing from your system. You may also have to configure it after installation

I've been trying to use Apache Cordova in Visual Studio 2015 CTP, but I'm getting error: "WebSocket4Net, The software is missing from your system. You may also have to configure it after installation.". I've tried:
Reinstall Visual Studio 2015 (and deleted previous version - 2013). In the setup I've marked Cordova tools.
I found some suggestion to download WebSocket4Net(0.9).Binaries.zip from CodePlex and copy it to specified folder. However, the file WebSocket4Net.dll I've already there in the folder c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\WebClient\Diagnostics\ToolWindows and looks it doesn't matter.
Environment: Windows 7 Professional
Any idea what can be done yet to fix this problem?
If you're installing Visual Studio 2015 copy it to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio
12.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\WebClient\Diagnostics\ToolWindows.
Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0

TFS XAML MSTest Path

I'm using TFS XAML to run my builds. (TFS 2012).
Part of the process is running MSTest to run the unit tests. The MSTest.exe is called from Visual Studio path on the build server.
The problem is that the MSTest is being called from the wrong version of Visual studio. It is calling:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe
I'd like it to call:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe
Where do / can I specify the version location of the MSTest.exe executable that I want to use.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0" is Visual Studio 2012 folder.
Do you have the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe" directory in the server?
EDIT: Possible duplicate of this (check lordkain's answer and comments).
You'll need to change the build template's MSTest activity which may
be located in several locations depending on your template. In the
default template the activity is labelled "Run MSTest for Metadata
File" or "Run MSTest for Test Assembly".
Go to it's properties and change the ToolPath to C":\Program Files
(x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE"