4 ms·

> PS - I have done a lot of .Net development, but rarely did anything beyond the basics with MSBuild directly (mostly via Visual Studio, or took the pre-generat

by duaneb 11y ago

> PS - I have done a lot of .Net development, but rarely did anything beyond the basics with MSBuild directly (mostly via Visual Studio, or took the pre-generated command line and stuck in a script). This is an excellent reason to avoid MSBuild. IDE lockin is a nightmare. Might be unavoidable for Visual Studio, though.

smacktoward 11y ago
If your priority is avoiding IDE lock-in and you have somehow ended up a Microsoft developer, you need to closely re-evaluate your life choices.
radicalbyte 11y ago
It depends what you're doing. If you're making libraries, console applications or doing modern websites it's pretty easy to get your build working without Visual Studio. One - ELEPHANT SIZE - problem is that for some reason Microsoft only ship the Windows SDKs as part of Visual Studio. Meaning that you'll need to install the IDE at least once to get a build running (you can copy the SDKs around after that). Microsofties - I know that a lot of dev-div people will be reading - can you shed some light on this situation? What's the reasoning behind not shipping the SDKs separately. I've never had this problem with Java..
- Locke1689 11y ago
  Do you mean this[1] Windows SDK? [1] https://dev.windows.com/en-us/downloads/windows-10-sdk https://dev.windows.com/en-us/downloads/windows-10-sdk
  - radicalbyte 11y ago
    Fantastic, I hope they keep it up :) Previous SDKs have taken a long time to appear outside of VS :(
- wallyhs 11y ago
  FWIW, you can install MSBuild without Visual Studio. It's part of the Windows SDK. If your target system is not supported, you have to run it on a supported system and choose the "Download for installation on a separate computer" option. Then copy the resulting msi and cab files to the server and run them. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12944502/build-asp-net-4-5-without-visual-studio-on-build-server http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12944502/build-asp-net-4-... However, after I did this, I had to find build targets that Visual Studio installed and copy them from my workstation into the same directory on the server (i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\WebApplications).
  - radicalbyte 11y ago
    Yup, that's how I make a build server: clean windows image, MSBuild, then copy the utils, build targets, reference assemblies etc over from a machine containing VS. It's such a pain that a famous ex-Microsoftie started a connect request for it: https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/5786689-support-net-builds-without-requiring-visual-studi https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-stud...
  - vpeters25 11y ago
    This works fine until you have to build a project with a 3rd party commercial library requiring licenses (.licx files). I just spent a week trying to put together a vagrant vm to build such a project finally giving up and adding visual studio to its provisioning script.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  The SDK has been shipped separately for ages.
  - radicalbyte 11y ago
    With Windows 8 and 8.1 it took a long time for them to be released. Looks like that has been solved now.

by duaneb 11y ago

smacktoward 11y ago

If your priority is avoiding IDE lock-in and you have somehow ended up a Microsoft developer, you need to closely re-evaluate your life choices.

radicalbyte 11y ago

It depends what you're doing. If you're making libraries, console applications or doing modern websites it's pretty easy to get your build working without Visual Studio. One - ELEPHANT SIZE - problem is that for some reason Microsoft only ship the Windows SDKs as part of Visual Studio. Meaning that you'll need to install the IDE at least once to get a build running (you can copy the SDKs around after that). Microsofties - I know that a lot of dev-div people will be reading - can you shed some light on this situation? What's the reasoning behind not shipping the SDKs separately. I've never had this problem with Java..

Locke1689 11y ago
Do you mean this[1] Windows SDK? [1] https://dev.windows.com/en-us/downloads/windows-10-sdk https://dev.windows.com/en-us/downloads/windows-10-sdk
- radicalbyte 11y ago
  Fantastic, I hope they keep it up :) Previous SDKs have taken a long time to appear outside of VS :(
wallyhs 11y ago
FWIW, you can install MSBuild without Visual Studio. It's part of the Windows SDK. If your target system is not supported, you have to run it on a supported system and choose the "Download for installation on a separate computer" option. Then copy the resulting msi and cab files to the server and run them. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12944502/build-asp-net-4-5-without-visual-studio-on-build-server http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12944502/build-asp-net-4-... However, after I did this, I had to find build targets that Visual Studio installed and copy them from my workstation into the same directory on the server (i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\WebApplications).
- radicalbyte 11y ago
  Yup, that's how I make a build server: clean windows image, MSBuild, then copy the utils, build targets, reference assemblies etc over from a machine containing VS. It's such a pain that a famous ex-Microsoftie started a connect request for it: https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/5786689-support-net-builds-without-requiring-visual-studi https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-stud...
- vpeters25 11y ago
  This works fine until you have to build a project with a 3rd party commercial library requiring licenses (.licx files). I just spent a week trying to put together a vagrant vm to build such a project finally giving up and adding visual studio to its provisioning script.
marcoperaza 11y ago
The SDK has been shipped separately for ages.
- radicalbyte 11y ago
  With Windows 8 and 8.1 it took a long time for them to be released. Looks like that has been solved now.