Is there a way to run an outside executable after a solution is built in Visual Studio 2008?

Question

I'm not talking about a post build event for a project. Rather, I want to run an executable automatically after the entire solution is built. Is there a way to do a post build event for the solution?

Answer 1

Visual Studio 2010 and before

You can do this in the Macro Editor by handling OnBuildDone. The event gives you a couple of handy properties you can check: scope (project/solution/batch) and action (build/rebuild/clean/deploy). To do what you want would be something like this (not tested, mind):

Public Sub AfterBuild(scope As vsBuildScope, action As vsBuildAction) _
        Handles BuildEvents.OnBuildDone
    If scope = vsBuildScope.vsBuildScopeSolution Then
        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("some file I want to run")
    End If
End Sub

Visual Studio 2012

The solution above won't work in Visual Studio 2012 because Microsoft has removed macros in that version. However, you can still do essentially the same thing with an add-in. To see how, go here:

Alternative to Macros in Visual Studio 2012