How to compile .NET 2015 Preview projects with TFS 2013 Build

Dec 28, 2014 |

TFS2015 build

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Struggling to compile your .NET 2015 Preview (.NET 4.6) solutions using TFS 2013 build? That’s because TFS 2013 uses MSBuild 12.0 as the default version. Your Microsoft .NET 2015 Preview (.NET 4.6 / C# 6 beta) solutions with fail compilation if you use TFS 2013 Build agents. Let’s see how this can be fixed…

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How to customize build template to point to MSBuild 14.0?

You need to amend the build templates to point to MS Build version 14.0. The easiest way to do this is to create a copy of the build template for backup.
Open the template in Visual Studio and search (Ctrl + F) for “ToolVersion”
Click F4 to load the properties window
Change the MSBuild version to “14.0”
Search for other occurrences of ToolVersion and override the values for MSBuild only

Customize TFS 2013 template to work with MSBuild 14.0

Note: Restart the build service to ensure that the updated version of the build template is picked up by the build agent. 

Queue a new build, your .NET 4.6 project should compile just fine.

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