Microsoft.WebApplication.targets was not found, on

Question

Trying to build my project on the build server gives me the following error:

Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 4.0.30319.1
error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\TeamData\Microsoft.Data.Schema.SqlTasks.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

I solved this problem a few months ago, with installing Visual Studio 2010 on the Build Server. But now I'm setup a new server from scratch, and I want to know if there any better solution to solve this issue.

Answer 1

UPD: as of VS2017, there is workload in Build Tools that eliminates this problem completely. See @SOReader answer.

If you'd prefer not to modify anything on build server, and you still want the project to build right out of source control, it might be a good idea to put the required binaries under source control. You'll need to modify the imports section in your project file to look like this:

<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\BuildTargets\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />
<Import Condition="false" Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />

The first line is the actual import from the new location that is relative to the solution directory. The second one is a turned-off version (Condition="false") of the original line that allows for Visual Studio to still consider your project to be a valid Web Application Project (that's the trick that VS 2010 SP1 does itself).

Don't forget to copy the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications to BuildTargets folder under your source control.

Answer 2

Anyone coming here for Visual Studio 2017. I had the similar issue and couldn't compile the project after update to 15.6.1. I had to install MSBulild tools but still the error was there.

I was able to fix the issue by copying the v14.0 folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio to the same folder as v15.0 and that resolved all the errors. So now my folder structure looks like below, where both folders contain the same content.

Answer 3

Based on this post here you can simply download the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Integrated) Redistributable Package and the targets are installed.

This avoids the need to install Visual Studio on the build server.

I have just tried this out now, and can verify that it works:

Before:

error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

After the install:

[Builds correctly]

This is a far better solution than installing Visual Studio on a build server, obviously.

Answer 4

• After installation of MSBuild tools from Microsoft, define the MSBuild path in the environment variable, so that it can be run from any path.
• Edit the .csproj file in any notepad editor such as notepad++, and comment the
• Check for the following elements, -->
  • Make sure you use import only once, choose whichever works.
  • Make sure you have the following folder exists on the drive, "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0" or whichever version is referenced by MSBuild target at "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets"
  • From the command prompt, run the following command, to check

C:>msbuild "C:\\DotnetCi.sln" /p:Configuration=Release /p:UseWPP_CopyWebApplication=true /p:PipelineDependsOnBuild=false

• choose /p switch as appropriate, refer to enter link description here enter image description here

Answer 5

Right now, in 2017, you can install WebApplication redists with MSBuildTools. Just go to this page that will download MSBuild 2017 Tools and while installation click Web development build tools to get these targets installed as well:

This will lead to installing missing libraries in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\WebApplications by default

Answer 6

You can also use the NuGet package MSBuild.Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.targets, referencing them within your Visual Studio project(s), then change your references as Andriy K suggests.