MSBuild ignoring /p:BuildProjectReferences=false on Azure build server

Question

I've a solution with three projects in it: 2 C# WPF projects and 1 WIX project to create an installer. I've set up a build pipeline on Azure DevOps that references our own build server so I have access to the OS.

I want the Wix installer project to be dependant on the two C# projects for my local test builds but for the Azure Pipeline, I need to build the C# projects first and sign the executables before creating the MSI installer with the WIX project (that needs to be signed, too).

The problem is that the build server ignores "/p:BuildProjectReferences=false" (which should force msbuild to NOT build the dependencies) while my local computer does not when I run the exact same command line on both:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin\msbuild.exe" Solution.sln /p:AppxBundle=Always /p:UapAppxPackageBuildMode=StoreUpload /p:RunWixToolsOutOfProc=true /p:BuildProjectReferences=false /target:Installer /m:4 /p:Platform="x64" /p:Configuration="Release"

Extra info

• I tried with and without Rebuild option (/target:Installer:Rebuild)
• The build server fetches the git repository so it's exactly the same project on both sides.
• Both Visual Studio installations are VS 2019 build version 16.11.14
• Both Wix Toolset installations are version v3.11.2.4516

Any ideas how to get the build server to not build the dependencies?

Answer 1

Well this is embarrassing. Apparently I had some change on my local computer that wasn't committed yet. So code on both platforms wasn't the same...

The fix was a change in the *.sln file

Project("{930C7802-8A8C-48F9-8165-68863BCCD9DD}") = "Installer", "Installer\Installer.wixproj", "{A9EDFE69-D273-42EE-97EA-469C3434AEDC}"
    ProjectSection(ProjectDependencies) = postProject
        {C784B33D-1E8D-41EF-97C2-983CA9A5B693} = {C784B33D-1E8D-41EF-97C2-983CA9A5B693}
        {B6E37FA9-64CF-491B-B268-9D115AABC6B2} = {B6E37FA9-64CF-491B-B268-9D115AABC6B2}
    EndProjectSection
EndProject
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "WPFProject1", "WPFProject1\WPFProject1.csproj", "{C784B33D-1E8D-41EF-97C2-983CA9A5B693}"
EndProject
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "WPFProject2", "WPFProject2\WPFProject2.csproj", "{B6E37FA9-64CF-491B-B268-9D115AABC6B2}"
EndProject

I removed the 'ProjectSection' in the first project (Installer). This resulted in the code being built completely in Visual Studio but not for the Azure Pipelines because of the use of the /p:BuildProjectReferences=false param in the pipeline build command.

The two WPF projects still exist as depedencies in Installer project.

I hope this helps someone someday (or myself in a future project)