How to install MSBuild 15.3 without Visual Studio?

Question

Is there a way to install version 15.3 of MSBuild on the build server without installing Visual Studio 2017?

I tried to install 'Build Tools for Visual Studio 2017' from https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ per https://stackoverflow.com/a/42697374/ however I ended up with version 15.1:

msbuild /version
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 15.1.1012.6693
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

15.1.1012.6693

We need version 15.3 to build Azure Functions project.

Answer 1

go to the microsoft website and download vs_buildtools (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/) after the download access the folder through the CMD prompt and start the installation through the commands below:

vs_buildtools__1882505178.1548260078.exe --layout c:\VS_BuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --lang en-US --includingOptional

• "vs_buildtools__1882505178.1548260078.exe" should be replaced with the version you downloaded to the site.
• "c:\VS_BuildTools" path where the installer should be.

Answer 2

Answer of this question may help you

How can I install the VS2017 version of msbuild on a build server without installing the IDE?

The Visual Studio Build tools are a different download than the IDE. They appear to be a pretty small subset, and they're called Build Tools for Visual Studio 2017 (Download)

You can use the GUI to do the installation, or you can script the installation of msbuild:

vs_buildtools.exe --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools --quiet

Answer 3

at the time of writing MSBuild 15.3 hasn't been released outside of preview versions of Visual Studio or the .NET Core CLI 2.0.0 previews.

When it is released, it will be part of VS 2017 15.3 (+ Build Tools), .NET Core CLI 2.0.0 and Mono 5.2

Answer 4

You can always build from source: https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/releases