MS-Build 2017 "Microsoft.WebApplication.targets " is missing

Question

I'm trying to upgrade our buildserver (jenkins) from Visual Studio 2015 to 2017. We're building via MS-Build. I've downloaded and installed MS-Buld tools as described in this answer. If I compile my projects I get an error that Microsoft.WebApplication.targets was not found.

Detailed error:

 error MSB4226: The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" 

I performed a find in the MS-Build directory:

PS C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild> dir -Recurse -Filter "Microsoft.WebApplication.targets"          Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\WebApplications      Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name                                                                                                                                                                                                              ----                -------------         ------ ----                                                                                                                                                                                                              -a----       11.01.2012     00:23          19654 Microsoft.WebApplication.targets                                                                                                                                                                                          Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\WebApplications      Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name                                                                                                                                                                                                              ----                -------------         ------ ----                                                                                                                                                                                                              -a----       22.07.2013     01:25          19995 Microsoft.WebApplication.targets                                                                                                                                                                                          Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\WebApplications      Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name                                                                                                                                                                                                              ----                -------------         ------ ----                                                                                                                                                                                                              -a----       06.07.2015     21:55          20118 Microsoft.WebApplication.targets                                                                                                                                                                                          Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\WebApplications      Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name                                                                                                                                                                                                              ----                -------------         ------ ----                                                                                                                                                                                                              -a----       22.07.2013     01:25          19995 Microsoft.WebApplication.targets

As can be seen the file exists for old compiler versions, but for v15.0 it is missing.

I also have installed Visual Studio 2017 on the build-server. The project succeeds to build if I compile with Visual Studio 2017.

Any hints how to solve this problem? One possible solution is to generate a symbolic link from C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\WebApplications point to the old v14.0 files (located under C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\WebApplications).

Thx

Answer 1

Looks like you are missing the workload for "Web development build tools": Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.WebBuildTools.

You can install it by downloading the build tools installer from here (VS2017) or here (VS2019) then running

vs_buildtools.exe --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.WebBuildTools 

or opening vs_buildtools.exe and selecting the "Web development build tools" component in the GUI:

Answer 2

The accepted answer above is technically correct just incomplete, a bit confusing, at least for me, and needed one extra step to get Visual Build Professional working.

1. vs_buildtools.exe does not technically exist. I had to create a question asking where that file was. It was not obvious that vs_buildtools.exe is vs_buildtools_*******.exe and is the actual installation program. Additionally the the "-add ***" mentioned above is just a shorthand. One can go to the GUI and check both workflow tasks. That does the same thing. I wound up having the vs_buildtools file, though not needing it.

2. VSB Pro still did not build my project. I got thrown the same error above. The secret sauce was simply to copy the WebApplicationsfolder in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0 to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0. I then rebuilt the project and all was fine. I placed the WebApplication.targets file at the expected location.

Why Microsoft could not have done that is beyond me. Also, why the separate installation. VS17 installs an enormous amount of stuff. Build Tools is implied, like always. Whatever.

I am posting this answer as hopefully it will help others. I fell into the trap and lost quite a bit of time with my project not building. I hope that this answer clarifies things a bit.