How to find the path to tf.exe from MsBuild

Question

I have an MsBuild file which shells out to TFS using tf.exe for a few things. Unfortunately the tf.exe file has been installed to different locations on the developer PCs and the build server.

I could really do with a way of detecting where the tf.exe file is located within my script in the same way you can do $(MSBuildExtensionsPath32) etc. Is this possible?

Thanks as always :)

Answer 1

Does the environment variable VS100COMNTOOLS point to the correct path for visual studio? E.g. VS100COMNTOOLS=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\

So then all you need is $(VS100COMNTOOLS)..\IDE

<Target Name="Build">    <Exec Command="&quot;$(VS100COMNTOOLS)..\IDE\tf.exe&quot;"/> </Target> 

or however you want to tidy it up.

The environment variable changes depending on the version of Visual Studio:

• %VS110COMNTOOLS% - Visual Studio 2012
• %VS120COMNTOOLS% - Visual Studio 2013
• %VS140COMNTOOLS% - Visual Studio 2015

Answer 2

Seems they changed location again in Visual Studio 2017. It was not in any of the above locations on my machine.

I found TF.exe instead at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer

(Some users may find in the Professional folder instead of Enterprise folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer\tf.exe)

Apparently the environment variable is no longer set by default in VS 2017.