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Compatibility between VS, TFS and TeamBuild template versions?

Disclaimer:

I'm no expert with TeamBuild. I'm aware that the questions I'm asking may be stupid.

What I currently have

I have a VS2010 solution with 10+ console applications and 3 ASP.NET Web Applications project. I set up a TeamBuild on our TFS2013.2 server with the following options:

  • The TeamBuild template is the default TFS2010 DefaultTemplate.xaml
  • It targets the solution file

The files ending in the drop folder are:

  • All the exes and the config files of the console applications
  • A _PublishedWebsites folder containing one folder per web application project. Note that web.config XML transform is not done

What I want

I'd like the build to give me:

  • One folder per console application
  • web.config XML transformation

My idea was to setup a new build with the default TFS2013 build template, TfvcTemplate.12.xaml, because I saw that there is an option specifying that the output should be on a PerProject basis. The build fails because of MSBuild failing to build the web projects, with an error related to WebDeploy:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets (3009): Web deployment task failed. (Unknown ProviderOption:DefiningProjectFullPath. Known ProviderOptions:.)

My Questions

  • Is it normal that a VS2010 solution fails when being built by a TFS2013 build template?
  • Is it normal that WebDeploy doesn't seem to get involved at all with the TFS2010 default build template but it is with the TFS2013 build template?
  • If not, may there be some adjustement to make in .csproj files to get them being built by a TFS2013 build template?
  • Do I have to update the targets files to the V12 version as it's TFS2013 which builds it?

My Potential answers

  • I have WebDeploy 3.5 installed on my build server, and I already got it to work.
  • All the targets files look in place

Thanks ;-)

Solution

  • I figured it out today, thanks to a blog post by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi.
    Basically, it explains what modifications are made to a .csproj when you open a VS2010 solution with VS2012 or VS2013. Links to .targets files, in this case the Microsoft.WebApplication.targets are made relative to the version of VS used to open the solution.

    As the solution I'm working on was only worked on with VS2010, the .targets file I was pointing to was the VS2010 specific version, located at
    C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets

    I manually edited the .csproj files of my 3 web applications projects to include Sayed's modifications, and then the build based on the TFS2013 default build template worked like a charm.

    My guess: TFBuild2013 was passing arguments to some WebDeploy MSBuild task that the VS2010 version of the .targets file didn't understand.

    Thanks for the response, @Daniel Mann!