Jenkins doesn't recognize msbuild.exe

Question

I just started working with Jenkins and following this tutorial: https://medium.com/southworks/creating-a-jenkins-pipeline-for-a.net-core-application-937a2165b073

I've got to the point of cleaning the solution but I get the error: 'msbuild.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

This is my Jenkinsfile until now:

pipeline {
    agent any
    stages {
        stage ('Clean workspace') {
            steps {
                cleanWs()
            }
        }
        stage ('Checkout git') {
            steps {
                git credentialsId: 'jenkins_id', url: 'https://github.com/org/project.git', branch: 'feature-branch'
            }
        }
        stage('NuGet restore') {
            steps {
                bat "dotnet restore ${workspace}\\solution.sln"
            }
        }
        stage('Clean solution') {
            steps {
                bat "msbuild.exe ${workspace}\\solution.sln -nologo -nr:false -p:platform=\"x64\" -p:configuration=\"release\" -t:clean"
            }
        }
    }
}

This is how I configured the MSBuild in Jenkins:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin is also added to my Path variable and I have an msbuild system variable with the same value.

I don't know if it matters but I'm using Rider for IDE.

Does someone know why Jenkins can't find msbuild?

Thanks

Answer 1

I assume you have Visual Studio 2019 installed. I suspect that the path is not correct. Use the vswhere command to find MSBuild. You can use the following command:

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere" -latest -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -find MSBuild\**\Bin\MSBuild.exe

On a machine of mine with Visual Studio 2022 Community installed, the result is:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe

On Windows you can depend on vswhere being available at "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere", if Visual Studio 2017 or later is installed.

( vswhere is Windows only, is part of the Visual Studio Installer for Windows, and is not part of the .NET SDK.)