Build Dot Net Project Without Installing Visual Studio By Using MS Build

Some situations we need to build dot net projects without installing visual studio in particular servers. To help such situations, we can use msbuild.exe. Following sections will explain using BAT file, how we can build the project.

1.0 set dot net framework path to environment variable.

To enable msbuild.exe in Command Prompt, you simply have to add .net framework path in the  environment variable of the machine.

You can access the environment variables by right clicking on 'Computer', click 'properties' and click 'Advanced system settings' on the left navigation bar. On the next dialog bog click 'Environment variables,' scroll down to 'PATH' and edit it to include your path to the framework (don't forget a ';' after the last entry in here.

For reference my path was C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319.

2.0 Bat file code

Open a note pad. Copy and paste below code and save extension as bat. Ex deploy.bat

Under  bat file code ,you need to give dot net project’s solution file path or project file path after ‘msbuild.exe’ depend on the requirement  as below.

‘pathMSBuild’ is denote dot net framework path

Code :

set pathMSBuild = "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\"

@echo off

cls

cd %pathMSBuild%

msbuild.exe "D:\Netstarter -projects test R and  D\NIGEL\nigel\codePool\NigelSolution\NigelSolution.sln" /p:configuration=debug

pause

3.0 Every time you click BAT file , project will build in particular server location.