MSBuild fails to build Visual Studio Project due to missing property files (potentially IDE related) - c++

Question

I'm trying to get Jenkins running in a docker windows container and I've got most everything set up but I continue to run into a compilation error:
22:21:06 C:\JENKINS_HOME\workspace\iCEWav\src\engine\IceLibrary\IceLibrary.vcxproj(27,3): error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VC\v160\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
I installed MSBuild using this command:
RUN C:\TEMP\Install.cmd C:\TEMP\vs_buildtools.exe --quiet --wait --norestart --nocache `
--channelUri C:\TEMP\VisualStudio.chman `
--installChannelUri C:\TEMP\VisualStudio.chman `
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended`
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.10240 `
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.10586 `
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.14393 `
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows81SDK `
--installPath C:\BuildTools
It looks like the Visual Studio Project that I created in Visual Studio Community looks for a properties file here:
<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" />
This builds fine on the local machine where the project was created but the file is missing in the docker container. I'm wondering if these files are generated once the IDE runs the first time or am I missing a step here?
So my boiled down question... Can I compile a Visual Studio Project File using only Visual Studio BuildTools? If so, how do I generate or ignore these property files.

Answer 1

Well that didn't take too long. According to documentation, MSBuild is actually not apart of the recommended or required workload for VCTools. The MSBuild that was already on the Docker container came from the base image provided by Micosoft and lacked the VC tools (mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/sdk:4.7.2-windowsservercore-ltsc2019).
I modified the install command to include MSBuild which ultimately downloaded the VC directories needed.
RUN C:\TEMP\Install.cmd C:\TEMP\vs_buildtools.exe --quiet --wait --norestart --nocache `
--channelUri C:\TEMP\VisualStudio.chman `
--installChannelUri C:\TEMP\VisualStudio.chman `
--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended`
--add Microsoft.Component.MSBuild `
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.10240 `
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.10586 `
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.14393 `
--remove Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows81SDK `
--installPath C:\BuildTools
This installed the necessary files.