MSBuild and Web Application Projects

One of the benefits of moving to .NET 2.0 is having a clean build computer. A build computer is a machine where software can compile in an isolated environment, and away from the quirkiness of a machine in day-to-day use. The goal is to produce repeatable builds for test and production with no manual steps and a minimum amount of overhead. Since the .NET framework 2.0 installation includes MSBuild.exe (which can parse project and solution files, compile source code, and produce binaries), there is no need to install Visual Studio on a build machine.

Web Application Projects throw in a twist because they import a .targets file: Microsoft.WebApplication.targets. The Web Application Projects installation will copy this file to a machine, but I was hesitant to run the install on a build computer. The install assumes Visual Studio will be on the computer, because it asks to download a VS specific update.

The good news is that copying Microsoft.WebApplication.targets to the build computer works. The file lives in the Microsoft\v8.0\WebApplications sub directory of the MSBuild extensions path (typically “c:\Program Files\MSBuild”).

P.S. Yes, I know about Team Foundation Build, but the build scripts and framework I’ve been using for 5 years work so well, so I’m not compelled to switch.