TeamCity on EC2 - MSBuildTools Path Not Found, yet manually installed on 2012 Server R2 (AWS)

Question

I'm hoping to get some assistance from you smart people!

I had my CI tool, TeamCity, compile solutions without a problem when VS 2015 was installed however I read from multiple sources that TeamCity does not need VS

Subsequently, I created an EC2 instance and installed JDK, MS BuildTools 2015, the Build Agent, and PsExec on my Build Server and connected it to the EC2 server housing the TeamCity client.

Unfortunately, it is giving off errors for a simple solution. -- http://imgur.com/M8sdDRs

I moved folders from my dev machine to the CI build agent server

Actually, you don't need to install Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012 on your CI server. You only need to copy a few folders from a development machine to the same location on the CI server.

• C:\\Program Files (x86)\\MSBuild\\Microsoft\\VisualStudio\\v14.0\\Web • C:\\Program Files (x86)\\MSBuild\\Microsoft\\VisualStudio\\v14.0\\WebApplications

The problem is still persisting and I've come to a stand-still and frustrated with the problem.

THANKS SO MUCH!

Answer 1

If you're using the Visual Studio (sln) step runner type then you will need VS installed because that requires devenv.exe to build the solution. Unless you've got specific requirements for that, you should probably switch to using MSBuild as your build engine to remove the dependency on devenv.exe. Configure a build step of type MSBuild, point it at your solution and select Microsoft Build Tools 2015 / 14.0.

I doubt all your problems magically go away though, as you'll still need to stage bits of MSBuild like you've mentioned (WebApplications targets etc). I've had major hassles over the years trying to get a stateless, dependency 'free' agent build configured; Windows / .NET SDK is a can of worms.

Answer 2

Recommendation from TeamCity - Install VS on the CI Server to minimize the potential for errors. I installed the full Community Version, though VS Isolated Shell was fine as well, I wanted to minimize the room for error.

I ensured that: Administration > [Project] > Build Configuration Settings > Agents Requirements had MSBuildTools14.0_x86_Path existing and set my parameters to follow the following great resource - http://blog.anthonybaker.me/2013/04/how-to-automate-builds-with-teamcity_3119.html