I’ve developed a tool which I use to build other solution files, and if succeeded then runs the output. The tool was initially built with VS2008 and the solution files that must build are also in VS2008. To build the solution files at runtime I’ve added references to Microsoft.Build.Engine and Microsoft.Build.Framework assemblies, and so far, so good.
Recently I was forced to move my main solution to VS2010, but the satellite solutions which must be built at runtime must be kept in VS2008 for the moment. Just to add up some more fun, the VS2008 solutions contains only C++ projects (which as everyone knows they are converted to vcxproj format in VS2010).
The issue I’m having, is that I’m not being able to load versions 3.5 of the mentioned assemblies. Despite all my efforts at runtime it always loads version 4.0 of them. This has the unwanted effect that when I try to build the VS2008 solutions I get the error: The project file "bla bla bla.vcproj" is in the ".vcproj" file format, which MSBuild no longer supports. Please convert the project by opening it in the Visual Studio IDE or running the conversion tool, or use MSBuild 3.5 or earlier to build it.
The C# project with the reference to the MSBuild assemblies is configured with TargetFramework 3.5, and the references to the assemblies are like this:
<Reference Include="Microsoft.Build.Engine, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
<SpecificVersion>True</SpecificVersion>
</Reference>
<Reference Include="Microsoft.Build.Framework, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
<SpecificVersion>True</SpecificVersion>
</Reference>
I’ve also tried setting the engine DefaultToolsVersion to 3.5, but that didn’t help either.
I’m trying to avoid calling the exact MSBuild version I want by lunching a new Process and sending the arguments to the command line, cause that would involve more work to register a logger and synchronizing the messages, so that my main app can know if the build succeeded and in that case run the output. I really hope that’s not the only way to go.
Any ideas, solutions, or help of any kind is really appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Finally I could manage to get it working. Just for the record, if by chance anyone stumbles with the same problem, the issue was another project in my solution (not the one using MSBuild) still targeting framework 4, which was causing my runtime to be 4.0 instead of 3.5