This appears to be a bug in VS2012 but I'm wondering if anyone has a workaround or can explain what's wrong. I followed this page for creating a simple KMDF driver in vs2012 here. Before building, I set the output directory for the driver package project to "$(SolutionDir)Output\$(ConfigurationName)\", the main difference being the addition of "Output" to the path.
When I build targeting Win32 it works fine, everything goes where I expect it to. However, when I build targeting x64, the output goes to "$(SolutionDir)$(ConfigurationName)\" instead. No matter what I enter for the output directory, it always starts at the SolutionDir.
When I'm selecting the Output Directory, if I click on Macros, I can see that OutDir is where the output is actually going, it does not match what I have specified for "Output Directory" in the project properties. Is there something else that is overriding OutDir? I've tried setting OutDir in the .vcxproj file but it still behaves the same.
For anyone who is having this issue; I have found a fix for myself.
You'll need to manually edit the project file (.vcxproj file).
You'll find this line:
<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.props" />
Move the property group that contains the OutDir definition right below that line, as in the following:
<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.props" />
<PropertyGroup Label="Globals">
<OutDir>$(SolutionDir)outbin\$(Configuration)\$(Platform)\</OutDir>
<OutputPath>$(SolutionDir)outbin\$(Configuration)\$(Platform)</OutputPath>
</PropertyGroup>
On my setup, the Microsoft.Cpp.props is overwritting those paths, so I need that to be included first, then overwrite what is configured in there.
Related
In vcproj file i have
<Configuration
Name="Release|Win32"
OutputDirectory=".\Release"
...
>
What is .\Release it is some kind of macros? In what settings is it indicated? How setup him?
That looks like a very old version of VC++, but you did not specify which. The (not so) new MSBuild project files have the extension vcxproj and have a different format:
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|Win32'">
<LinkIncremental>true</LinkIncremental>
<OutDir>.\Release</OutDir>
</PropertyGroup>
Nevertheless, you make these changes from the Project properties. By default, the output directory is $(SolutionDir)$(Configuration)\ in which case the <OutDir> setting is missing. You can, however, explicitly set a different output directory.
I know this refers to the MSBuild project format but these are handled similarly in older versions that were using VSBuild.
.\Release is output directory name. Whenever you build your project compiler will create folder Release in the current directory and output will copy to that directory.
It happens in a complex solution, but I can reproduce it in a new empty solution.
I built it (ctrl+shift+B) with debug mode, X86, diagnostic.
1> Set Property: _InvalidConfigurationMessageText=The OutputPath
property is not set for project 'ConsoleApplication1.vcxproj'. Please
check to make sure that you have specified a valid combination of
Configuration and Platform for this project. Configuration='Debug'
Platform='Win32'. 1> Set Property:
_InvalidConfigurationMessageText=The OutputPath property is not set for project 'ConsoleApplication1.vcxproj'. Please check to make sure
that you have specified a valid combination of Configuration and
Platform for this project. Configuration='Debug' Platform='Win32'.
This error may also appear in some other project is trying to follow a
project-to-project reference to this project, this project has been
unloaded or is not included in the solution, and the referencing
project does not build using the same or an equivalent Configuration
or Platform.
^ I make sure that there isn't any References that it claims.
Here is what I have tried.
First, a part of my .vcxproj (link to the full file) looks like this:-
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|Win32'" Label="Configuration">
<ConfigurationType>Application</ConfigurationType>
<UseDebugLibraries>true</UseDebugLibraries>
<PlatformToolset>v141</PlatformToolset>
<CharacterSet>Unicode</CharacterSet>
### I will insert something here ###
</PropertyGroup>
According to a SO link and another one, I should insert one of these lines at ### :-
<OutputPath>$(Configuration)\$(Platform)\</OutputPath>
<OutputPath>$(SolutionDir)$(Configuration)\</OutputPath>
<OutputPath>bin\$(Platform)\</OutputPath>
Same as above, but add it in <ItemGroup Label="ProjectConfigurations">
Remove Label="Configuration".
According to another SO link, I also tried AnyCPU or Any CPU (tested in a more complex solution, but a new empty solution doesn't have it.).
A Microsoft link states that Output Path is for C#. In C++, I must use Output Directory. It is OutDir.
<OutDir>$(SolutionDir)$(Configuration)\</OutDir>
<OutDir>$(Configuration)\$(Platform)\</OutDir>
Do above things, but in a property sheet.
Do above things, but also unloaded-reload project, and even restart VS2017.
After I tried every combination, the warning still exists.
The program can be compiled and run correctly,
but I believe it is a cause of unnecessary recompilation in a much larger solution.
Question: How to solve the warning/error?
OutputPath word in the console is suspicious.
I doubt VS recognize my solution as C#. (is it even possible? - my test project has std::cout)
For some reasons, most SO questions about this error are related to msbuild or C# or .net (another one), not C++.
Reply
There is no such Win32 option in the combo box, so I create a new one.
Configuration Manager > Active solution platform : <New...>
I also make sure that the setting is correct :-
However, I still got the same error message.
You have suspicious platform set - x86, change it to Win32.
UPD.: so the problem appears to be not with the project, but with Visual Studio installation - try to repair/reinstall it.
On my case, we moved the project from a different system, so, some of the directories were pointing to a wrong (non default) path.
On Solution Explorer, right click the project name, select Unload the project, then, right click again and select Edit the xxx.csproj, finally search, check and fix your <OutputPath>bin\Debug\</OutputPath> or <OutputPath>bin\Release\</OutputPath>on your different PropertyGroup conditions.
While trying to answer this SO question I encountered an issue which I cannot explain and would appreciate your input on.
Setup:
Have solution consisting of several C++ projects (Test.sln),
Add a brand new project to your solution (BuildInstaller.vcxproj),
Open BuildInstaller.vcxproj in text editor and append following xml fragment right before closing </Project> tag:
<Target Name="Build">
<MSBuild Projects="..\Test.sln" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=Win32" />
<MSBuild Projects="..\Test.sln" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=x64" />
</Target>
Above code overrides default Build target of the BuildInstaller project and everytime the project is being built, it builds its parent solution with Release configuration for both Win32 and x64 platforms,
To prevent unbounded recursion, open Configuration Manager in Visual Studio and uncheck "Build" checkbox for BuildInstaller project for all combinations of Debug/Release and Win32/x64,
Then, still in Configuration Manager, create a new configuration, e.g. Installer for which you should uncheck all the other project's Build checkbox and leave it checked for BuildInstaller only,
Now build your solution for Installer configuration.
I would expect this build to finish successfully, but it simply hangs, even though BuildInstaller should not be built recursively as we are recursively building the Test.sln only for Release configuration.
I am not asking whether this is a good approach or how to work around it, I am just curious why the build hangs. Setting output window verbosity to Diagnostic was of no help to me.
I am using Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate.
MSBuild has an internal protection about recursion in the projects. Normally your build will fail with error MSB4006 in a case if any sort of circular dependency is discovered in the build graph. That said, if I were to guess what might have caused the hang, and if it is related to recursion, I would have inclined on the side of .sln files. The reason is that the way MSBuild treats .sln files is quite peculiar. Any time it encounters .sln file, it converts it to intermediate representation that actual MSBuild engine can understand. That intermediate representation does not have any identifier similar to the project file, thus the circular dependency detection logic might not work correctly if .sln is in the loop.
To solve your particular problem, there are couple of ways. The easiest one is to remove BuildInstaller.vcxproj from Test.sln. The second is to modify BuildInstaller.vcxproj as follows:
First, create an ItemGroup, populated with all projects from the solution:
<ItemGroup>
<AllMyProjects Include="..\Proj1\Proj1.vcxproj" />
<AllMyProjects Include="..\Proj2\Proj2.vcxproj" />
...
<!-- DO NOT ADD BuildInstaller project to prevent recursion!!! -->
</ItemGroup>
Then build the projects for every configuration:
<Target Name="Build">
<MSBuild Projects="#AllMyProjects" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=Win32" />
<MSBuild Projects="#AllMyProjects" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=x64" />
</Target>
The downside of the second approach is that you have to remember to maintain list of projects in sync between .sln and your installer project.
When I publish my project in VS2010 for ClickOnce a strange value for <deploymentProvider codebase="file://oldserver/.../....application" /> was present in my manifest file. The name oldserver name was wrong, it had to be replaced.
I didn't have a clue where the name oldserver came from?
In the project file I had
<InstallUrl>\\newserver\...\</InstallUrl>
but when opened, in the project properties in VS2010 oldserver was again displayed as publish folder location.
SOLUTION: In a hidden file called buildconfig.targets this was configured.
This file was referenced in the .proj file:
<Import Project="buildconfig.targets" />
In this file you need
<UpdateUrl>\\newserver\...\</UpdateUrl>
as well!
If you're publishing from Visual Studio, make sure you set the Install Url.
It's in the publish settings (in project settings for the project you are publishing) underneath the install url.
If you're publishing from MSBuild, then you need to set the UpdateUrl property (/p:UpdateUrl=youraddress for example).
When looking at your project in Visual Studio. select Build and then Configuration Manager. Check the information in your build configurations for Debug and Release and make sure they are correct. This is a total guess, but I could see something being set up in there.
I have a solution with several C++ projects. For some of the projects I need some custom file copy, e.g. to copy some configuration files to the output directory or to copy the output files of one project to a specific folder after build.
In some cases I don't want or cannot add these files to the projects directly through the Visual Studio IDE. I created simple .targets files which I can reuse and add to the projects which need the file copying.
Here is a simple example .targets file for copying configuration files:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<BuildDependsOn>
$(BuildDependsOn);
CopyCustom
</BuildDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<CustomFiles Include="$(ProjectDir)Config\**\*.xml" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<DestCustFolder>$(OutDir)Config\</DestCustFolder>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="CopyCustom"
Inputs="#(CustomFiles )"
Outputs="#(CustomFiles ->'$(DestCustFolder)%(RecursiveDir)%(FileName)%(Extension)')">
<Message Text="Copy custom files..." />
<Copy SourceFiles="#(CustomFiles )" DestinationFiles="#(CustomFiles->'$(DestCustFolder)%(RecursiveDir)%(FileName)%(Extension)')" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
</Target>
</Project>
Through the "Build Customization" dialog in Visual Studio I add it to the project so it will be included like this at the end of the project file:
<ImportGroup Label="ExtensionTargets">
<Import Project="..\Targets\CopyCustom.targets" />/
</ImportGroup>
This should enable incremental build of my custom target. If I just edit one of my custom files (and none of the C++ files) and build it form the console with
msbuild foo1.vcxproj
it will actually detect the changes and does an incremental build for my custom target. If no changes are made the target is skipped.
If I do however build inside Visual Studio it will not detect changes to the custom files and only and gives me the message that the project is up to data:
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 0 failed, 5 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========
I would have to additionally change one of the C++ files to make it check all targets again and to the incremental build.
I was expecting that Visual Studio just executes MSBuild which will then do the up-to-date check on the projects, so it should be the same result as running MSBuild from the console. I was trying to get more information by setting the verbosity level to diagnostic but I just get the same line. It seems to me that MSBuild is not even executed for the project but Visual Studio itself determines that the project is up-to-date.
So I was wondering how Visual Studio actually determines when it should execute MSBuild for a project.
I asked basically the same question before on the MSDN forum but couldn't get a clear answer.
See this suggestion on Microsoft Connect.
Basically you need to set DisableFastUpToDateCheck property to true to disable the fast-up-to-date check.
Just add to your vcxproj or your targets file:
<PropertyGroup>
<DisableFastUpToDateCheck>true</DisableFastUpToDateCheck>
</PropertyGroup>
I found an answer by looking into the book "Inside the Microsoft Build Engine, Second Edition".
Note: I also updated the same in my question in the MSDN forum but I will mainly duplicate the text here again for completeness.
On page 280 they actually saying that the IDE does a "fast up-to-date check" on the project-level. It only spawns a project build and does a more fine-grained check on the individual tasks if this rough project-level check fails.
When running MSBuild from the command line however there is always a fine-grained up-to-date check on the individual tools.
So the IDE only seems to do this fast check on the files which are added to the projects directly and set as one of the "Input File" types.
In my opinion this is not a good design. I would prefer that the IDE is only used to edit the MSBuild project files and then just invokes MSBuild to do the up-to-date check. This would make it much clearer.
I can understand that in a solution with a lot of projects it can make the up-to-date check much faster but there should be at least an option to disable the fast up-to-date check. I was checking the IDE if there is a way to disable this behavior but could not find anything.
The solution suggested here actually works and I am using it at the moment. But I added several custom targets for different kinds of custom files. If I add a new custom file I should never forget to set it to "Custom Build Tool" otherwise the incremental build for this file will not work.
I guess a solution would be to make a full build customization for my custom files and use specific file extensions for them so Visual Studio will automatically detect them when I add them to the project and sets the right Item Type.