TFS build doesn't include .net assemblies from dependent projects

[asanford]

I am using ISLE 2011 with an ASP.NET app. When I build the setup project in VS2010 (interactively), the setup program will put all of the .net assemblies for other projects in the solution that the web project is dependent on into the web app's bin folder (well, it actually puts them in the app\bin\bin folder, as described in another post.)

However, when I build the exact same solution from TFS build, the only file that the resulting setup.exe program puts into the app's bin folder is the assembly for the web project itself - all of the dependent assemblies are missing!

The setup is configured to put the "Primary Output" of the web project into an explicitly defined folder called "bin" under the [INSTALLDIR]; when I click "resolve project output", it only shows the one assembly for the web project itself, but when I click on "dependencies from scan at build", it shows all of the dependent assemblies.

I also checked the .net "Scan at build" setting for the "primary output" element; it is set to "dependencies and properties". Is this correct?

How can I fix this?

[Madusree]

Hi,

Can you try the following steps and let me know if you still encounter the same Issue

1. Log on the Team Build machine with the same account that you use to run Team Build and build your solution.
2. When you build Install Shield project do you have UI? – Team Build runs as Windows Service by default. You might have to change this to run as Interactive Service under the Build Service Properties

Thanks,
Madu

[asanford]

Hi, Madusree,

Thanks. I haven't been able to try what you asked on the TFS machine, but TFS build is running as a service.

However, the same problem I reported occurs even outside of TFS build. For example, the same solution that works properly when built interactively on my PC using Visual Studio, exhibits the problem if I instead go to a command prompt on my machine and build the solution from the cmdline using msbuild. I am running the cmdprompt as the same user as Visual Studio, and it is an admin.

BTW, the TFS service account is ALSO currently running as an admin, against the Microsoft best practice, so as to work around the problem where the ISLE build doesn't work with TFS build unless it's running as an admin.

For now, I've worked around this problem by adding all of the primary outputs of the dependent projects to the bin folder. It should be easy to reproduce this problem. Have you been able to repro it?

Regards,
-Andy

[Madusree]

Hi,

Your build server has the WebApplication targets file located in \MSBuild\Microsoft\Visual Studio\v10.0\WebApplications , if not copy this file from your development machine to the same path in the build server.

When the WebApplication target file wasn't present in the build server,the reported behavior is replicable.

Thanks,
Madu