VCTargetsPath not set, cannot resolve Projectfile

[DSinMeliodas]

Hi,
I've tried to read properties of a C++ Project to evaluate the sdk paths that are used in this project. The first issue I encountered was that the environment variable VCTargetsPath wasn't set so the .cpp.props and .cpp.targets files couldn't be resolved which resulted in an exception. I fixed this by setting the environment variable temporarily by code but doesn't seem to me like clean code so I search for a better way to do this but didn't find one so is there a better way to solve this?

[benvillalobos]

Team Triage: We'll need more information to help you on this:

• Can you provide an example project that reproduces this behavior?
• Can you share your build logs?
• What version of msbuild are you on? (run msbuild -version on a developer command prompt)

It looks like VCTargetsPath should be set like so (in app.config):

src\MSBuild\app.config
106:        <property name="VCTargetsPath" value="$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath)','$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VC\v160\'))" />
107:        <property name="VCTargetsPath14" value="$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath14)','$([MSBuild]::GetProgramFiles32())\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\'))" />
108:        <property name="VCTargetsPath12" value="$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath12)','$([MSBuild]::GetProgramFiles32())\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120\'))" />
109:        <property name="VCTargetsPath11" value="$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath11)','$([MSBuild]::GetProgramFiles32())\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V110\'))" />
110:        <property name="VCTargetsPath10" value="$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath10)','$([MSBuild]::GetProgramFiles32())\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\'))" />

[DSinMeliodas]

MSBuild Version:

Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.7.0+b89cb5fde for .NET Framework
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
16.7.0.37604

Example Project and Binary Log.zip

[Forgind]

I'm not sure if the underlying cause is the same, but I made a C++ console app, then created a makefile project that was supposed to call it via dotnet build <path to .sln> and tried to build that. It failed with an error about not finding C:\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props, which suggests VCTargetsPath wasn't set.

[benvillalobos]

Team Triage: We're guessing you have multiple instances of VS installed, MSBuildLocator.RegisterDefaults() isn't what you want to use in this case. You'll want to call MSBuildLocator.QueryVisualStudioInstances() and MSBuildLocator.RegisterInstance on the one you want.