The packages created by a TFS 2010 Build only contain our Sources, not the binaries. When this is (automatically) deployed to IIS, the site does not run because it is missing DLLs that are created during the build process.
We have a Web Project created in VS2010. If I select “Build Deployment Package” from a right click in VS we get a zip file in the obj\Release\Package folder that contains the fully build site.
However, if ask our TFS build process to create the package by adding “/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=true /p:DeployOnBuild=true” to the MSBuild arguments (as advised in amongst other places here) we get an zip file in _PublishedWebsites\_Package\.zip that only contains the sources.
My best guess is that the CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage is picking up the files from the wrong place.
I notice a similar issue asked here – TFS 2010 and creating a package – although his workaround in not appropriate in many cases, I’d guess.
My concern is that this is using a built-in, but poorly documented feature of MSBuild/TFS so when it doesn’t work you’re a little in the wilderness.
It seems that deployOnBuild runs some “package”-like target on each of the projects. If you have built the projects into a separate directory (which the default TFS 2010 build does by default) the packaging won’t pick up the compiled files.
One solution is to get rid of the custom output folder for the MSBuild Command within the TFS build workflow. This will cause the compiled files to be located in-situ and be included in the package.
Now the rest of the TFS workflow is require some changes because it’ll be expecting to transfer the files from the output directory, and they won’t be there.