Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 and WiX? - wix

Has anybody been using WiX with 2010? I'm not able to get my install projects to work in 2010 and I can't find any info on getting this to work/future plans for support.

Try installing the latest build of WiX 3.5. This is the version that supports VS2010. I don't know if it has been updated for the beta2 release, but there was a new one built 3 days ago.
EDIT: The link above will not work for Visual Studio 2010 post-Beta. For later releases of Visual Studio 2010, use the latest release:
http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/
and select the latest version.

which version of Wix are you using? last I checked, there was some compatibility issues with wix >=3, votive, and visual studio.
you might have to get a custom build of votive that will load on 2010.

As of October 26, this is what I had to do to get it working:
Download latest of 3.5 http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/3.5.1023.0/
I snagged Wix35_x64.msi, you grab the other if you run 32bit. I'm not sure what the other (less obvious) files are for (I'm looking at you, ProjectAggregator2).
After installation, Wix projects load (yay!) but don't build (boo) with an error about the path for Candle.EXE being invalid. Apparently, its still looking for "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Installer XML v3" on my system.
Created this directory and copied the contents of "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Installer XML v35" into it.
Now, apart from some build errors due to changes in some of the $vars, it works.

We added support for Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 in last Friday's build. See http://www.joyofsetup.com/2009/10/30/wix-v3-5-supports-visual-studio-2010-beta-2/.

Related

msbuild fails to compile vsto project

We recently installed a new development environment (Windows 10) from scratch with Visual Studio 2017 but we cannot manage to make msbuild compile a Microsoft Office Addin for Word (vsto).
Within the Visual Studio installer we made sure to include the required components for Office Development.
It throws the following error (german translated to english)
error MSB4226: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\OfficeTools\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.targets" was not found. Also, tried to find "OfficeTools\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.targets" in the fallback search path(s) for $(VSToolsPath) - "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0" [...]
However, the project builds fine within Visual Studio.
On the old system, everything works fine, and i cannot remember having to configure anything at all.
You need to install Office build tools when installing Build Tools for Visual Studio 2017
In my case, I managed to get around the issue by copying the folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio
from the development environment (the old environment in your case) to
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio
on the build environment (the new environment in your case). I would have thought that one should be able to simply get the relevant targets from the Build Tools for Visual Studio 2017 but that appears not to be the case.
After reinstalling everything it works now.
I guess back then when we set up this machine, the build tools setup was bugged or something.
Now we could install everything we needed for the buildtools using the visual studio installer and it works like a charm.
Okay, so I've worked through this one now. The problem was caused by me using Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4...\Msbuild.exe.
It looks as though running msbuild from this location results in it not being able to implicitly locate many of the assemblies and build utilities required to build a VSTO project.
I resolved the problem by switching to using C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild.exe

TFS 2015 visual studio build task does not support VS 2017

We have a build definition in TFS 2015 that have worked fine with Visual Studio 2015 projects and solutions. We have now decided to upgrade to Visual Studio 2017 and thus we would like to target Visual Studio 2017 in the Visual Studio build task. We have installed Visual Studio 2017 on the build agent. Unfortunately the only options available int the Visual Studio build task are 2012, 2013, 2015 and Latest. We have tried latest but it does not find Visual Studio 2017 on the build agent. It won't work with the msbuild task either.
I have a similiar issue and resolved by installing VS2017 in my build agent server and configuring MSBuild to point to my MSBuild 15.0 folder:
Add MSBuild to your build steps
On the Advanced options, expand and fill the 'Path to MSBuild' like the image below:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin
VS2017 RTM is released recently while TFS2015 was released before. That's why there is no VS2017 option in VS Build Task in TFS2015 Server. If you upgrade your server to the latest TFS2017, you would see "Visual Studio "15" (preview)" option listed in VS Build Task which is the version for VS2017 preview. And in the feature, the option will be updated to VS2017 which is the same as VSTS.
we are facing a similar issue and it is not possible for us to update ourselves as it is maintained on a company level where we cannot take that much influence.
However our team wanted to switch to VS2017 and make use of the C# 7 features. That's why we tried it as well with replacing the build steps from Visual Studio Build to MSBuild. Sadly this did not work as expected (we got some errors during the build).
As our main objective is to use the C# 7 features we looked for a way how to still achieve that at the time with Visual Studio 2015 remaining on the Build Server. We ended up using the nuget package Microsoft.Net.Compilers that, when used in a project, will use that compiler instead of the installed one.
More on this can be found in this Thread.
It seems the updates to the build tools are installed via the command line of the VS2017 installer.
See the docs for details.
Just adding another thing: if you're using custom build template make sure to edit it and modify the ToolPath attribute value to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin

Visual Studio 2015 - a lot of Packages are missing

So I recently bought a new computer. And now I wanted to install visual studio 2015. So I did. But now the problem is that i cant create a new project because i cant select a vb.net form or anything else and also im getting these error messages saying:
The 'ErrorListPackage' package did not load correctly
The'VisualStudioPackage' package did not load correctly
The Microsoft.visual studio package did not load correctly
anyone has a solution for this? because I'm kinda getting a bit frustrated now.
I tried a complete uninstall and install and it didnt work. I tried copying folders from my laptop to my new pc but also that didn't work. Also switching frameworks doesn't do anything. I also never experienced this problem before but can this problem occure because I have 2 drives?? Seems odd but I think I'm also going to do an uninstall again and then try the .iso installer and see if that helps.
So this is how I fixed it for myself.
I removed all files and folders that are linked to visual studio
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0
C:\Users\name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio
C:\Users\name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio
C:\Users\name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio Services
C:\Users\name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VSCommon
C:\Users\name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VsGraphics
After I deleted all of those folders I deleted the regkeys located:
HKLM > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Visual Studio
After that I started the visual studio installer with admin rights.
And now I can create a project :)
This usually indicates an issue with an extension which ships with some dependent assemblies which Visual Studio itself (or another extension) also depends on. When these dependencies are different versions, it's not predictable which version will load.
To solve your problem, first disable your extensions and add-ins, then close Visual Studio, clear the ComponentModelCache folder under:
C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ComponentModelCache
And start Visual Studio again.
This should clear the immediate issue.
Now enable each extension one-by-one restarting Visual Studio every time to see if the issues come back.
To dive deeper into the underlying issue, you could look into all the extensions under these folders:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions
C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\Extensions
Look for assemblies from Microsoft itself (commonly found are Microsoft.TeamFoundation.* and Microsoft.VisualStudio. in folders containing an extension that did not originate from Microsoft. These extensions are common culprits for these issues.
If you want to dig deeper, consider using fuslogvw from the Windows SDK to see which assemblies are loaded and which exact versions they are. You can also look into the Visual Studio logs after the issue surfaces to see what underlying cause there may be. The log should be available under:
%AppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\ActivityLog.XML

Getting msbuild.exe without installing Visual Studio

How do you get msbuild.exe without installing those crazy Visual Studio programs?
I need it for an npm install to finish working. I'm on Windows 7 and can't get on older version of Visual Studio 2013 Express online.
The latest (as of Jan 2019) stand-alone MSBuild installers can be found here: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/
Scroll down to "Tools for Visual Studio 2019" and choose "Build Tools for Visual Studio 2019" (despite the name, it's for users who don't want the full IDE)
See this question for additional information.
It used to be installed with the .NET framework. MsBuild v12.0 (2013) is now bundled as a stand-alone utility and has it's own installer.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=40760
To reference the location of MsBuild.exe from within an MsBuild script, use the default $(MsBuildToolsPath) property.
You can also get the MSBuild executable as a Nuget package https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Build.Runtime/.
Download MSBuild with the link from #Nicodemeus answer was OK, yet the installation was broken until I've added these keys into a register:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\12.0]
"VCTargetsPath11"="$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath11)','$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\\Microsoft.Cpp\\v4.0\\V110\\'))"
"VCTargetsPath"="$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath)','$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\\Microsoft.Cpp\\v4.0\\V110\\'))"

Wix darice.cub file missing when building from visual studio 2010

We have created a simple wix project for a basic windows application. Everything builds fine and the MSI is produced.
However, switching to Release gives the following error message;
light.exe(0,0): error LGHT0222: The cube file'C:\Users\julius\AppData\Local\assembly\dl3\3V768E95.XWA\CYQG3JK6.XHT\2b4730b4\00186b06_b0b7cb01\darice.cub' cannot be found. This file is required for MSI validation.
If I run our build script which uses msbuild to build the solution everything works fine. So I am thinking it got something to do with the visual studio environment. I have tried making a simple solution with a wix installer and that solution works fine both in debug and release.
Im running this on Windows 7 64 bit box using VS 2010 SP1.
Any ideas what I should look for?
Same config here. I just copied it from C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Installer XML v3.6\bin to that location and the error is gone. Weird...
I was able to fix this in VS2013 by simply restarting Visual Studio