How to build multiple dependency projects in tfs 2010

Question

I'm very much new to the TFS. I have a project smarthub installer. To build this i have to build two other project CPMhub.services and CPMhub.website. Is there any way that i can right click on smart hub installer and say build so that it will build other two projects and drop into thier repesctive drop location.

Thank you

Bhasker

Answer 1

This is not TFS related, but here's how to do it.

The simplest way is to create a solution with your Setup project AND the two other projects (CPMhub.services and CPMhub.website).

Then right click on the Setup project in the Solution Explorer, then "Add", then "Project Output...", then you'll just have to choose the project and the build configuration.

If you want the project output to be dropped directly in a given folder do exactly the same steps but from the File System view of the Setup project by right clicking on the folder that will received the output of your dependent project.

Answer 2

Just checking. Is your installer project a WiX project ? Or a Visual Studio Setup Project? The latter isn't supported in Team Build 2010 and will be completely removed from Visual Studio in the next version (11).

As mentioned by Nockawa, the easiest solution is to create a solution which contains all projects, setup, services and site and just add project references to the (Wix) setup project

An alternative to creating one solution file is to use the AIT Dependency Manager Extension which can be used to trigger other builds and reference their output directly. You will still need to migrate to Wix in order to build your installers from Team Build.

Note that you might find some solutions to build Visual Studio Setup projects using Team Build. My experience is that these often result in hanging builds, errors and other problems due to the fact that they use devenv.exe /build and devenv.exe will ask questions and pop-up warnings now and then using modal dialogs.