The imported project Microsoft.WebApplications.targets was not found

Question

I have this error when configuring continuous integration in TFS server, but found the answer already. Maybe this will help others:

The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\
   MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\
   Microsoft.WebApplications.targets" was not found.

See also ... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3980909/microsoft-webapplication-targets-was-not-found-on-the-build-server-whats-your — SteveC, May 07 '15 at 08:22

score 60 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 30 '11 at 13:13

60

You need to either...

Install Visual Studio on your build machine, or
Manually copy the contents of the MSBuild\Visual Studio\v10.0\WebApplications folder to the same location on your build machine.

answered Aug 30 '11 at 13:13

Jim Lamb

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Are there any current circumstances in which we are _not_ permitted to copy targets to a build machine? Are we always licensed to copy a .targets file from a Visual Studio installation assuming even a single machine is licensed for that SKU? – John Saunders Jul 13 '13 at 00:58
3

For all of those stumbling upon this in the future, remember that there are times the projects are configured with static paths. In my case, the project is configured with a static path to `v11.0` while developing in `v12.0` and so I just needed to duplicate the small folder structure in the `v11.0` path. Good answer Jim! – Mike Perrenoud Feb 02 '15 at 17:24
Yup, that's the answer. I was going to answer myself but figured I don't have enough reputation to do it right away. The answer is also in here: http://stack247.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/the-imported-project-microsoft-webapplications-targets-was-not-found/ – stack247 Aug 30 '11 at 17:58

score 23 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 13 '13 at 00:53

23

<!--<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />-->

Comment above line in .CSproj. Seems like bug with Microsoft which do not remove or comment while updating project from visual studio 2008 to 2010.

edited Jul 13 '13 at 00:53

ThiefMaster

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answered Jul 12 '13 at 16:47

Manoj

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I had a smimilar issue, but with a different version of VS. `` – Martin May 28 '14 at 15:28
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Thanks for this. In my .csproj file I had two lines with `Microsoft.WebApplication.targets` and once deleted the build worked. (project is a .net 4.5 MVC and I was using `dotnet build` command, building with VS worked fine.) – Romesh D. Niriella Jan 31 '20 at 00:09

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 26 '15 at 03:16

7

I saw the same error when setting up continuous integration with Jenkins. I was able to add a command-line argument to MSBUILD: /p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0 because I had Visual Studio 2012 installed on my build server.

answered Aug 26 '15 at 03:16

TPoschel

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score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 18 '17 at 05:19

I experienced something similar.

I had written this in our Autobuild.targets file run as part of a build. It defines MSWebApplicationTargets:

<MSWebApplicationTargets>$(SolutionDirectory)\packages\MSBuild.Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.targets.14.0.0.3</MSWebApplicationTargets>

Then in a .csproj file that is part of the project and used in the build it had:

<Import
     Project="$(MSWebApplicationTargets)/tools/VSToolsPath/WebApplications/Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />

Now our problem was that when we opened the project in Visual Studio it said that c:/tools/VSToolsPath/WebApplications/Microsoft.WebApplication.targets doesn't exist (because VS considered MSWebApplicationTargets to be undefined and so seemed to default it to c:\). You don't provide enough information though perhaps that is what caused your problem also.

All I had to do to solve this was add a condition:

<Import 
    Project="$(MSWebApplicationTargets)/tools/VSToolsPath/WebApplications/Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" 
    Condition="'$(MSWebApplicationTargets)' != ''" />

Why do this with `Microsoft.WebApplication.targets`

As part of some futher discussion, I did this with Microsoft.WebApplication.targets so we didn't have to rely on Visual Studio being installed on the build servers. I added it as a dependency:

In Visual Studio right-click on the project and go to manage nuget packages. This created a packages.config file that listed MSBuild.Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.targets as a dependency.
I then added nuget.exe restore to the start of the build script so that the dependencies are downloaded.

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 01 '14 at 21:46

3

Download & install Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Shell (Isolated) Redistributable Package. Or use the direct link to vs_isoshell.exe. I intend to make an NuGet package for this at a later date.

The advantage I see to this approach is it removes any doubt on copyright issues.

answered Dec 01 '14 at 21:46

Tim Murphy

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This is a gold hint. As I was trying to build a solution under SharpDevelop, this was the ONLY ONE solution that brought a real independent (non-VS) solution. I know that SharpDevelop doesn't have to do with the OP's question, just documenting for any other SD users and declaring that this works either way. – Charles Roberto Canato Dec 12 '15 at 05:45

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 30 '13 at 00:59

And if you already have Visual Studio installed? Perhaps you have Visual Studio 2012 installed (and 10.0 indicates VS 2010)? If that's the case, you can just search your .csproj file for "10.0" and replace that with "11.0" and you'll then be able to open the project just fine.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 02 '14 at 19:26

I had this problem as well except that this files were already there. After a lot of troubleshooting the answer turned out to be frustratingly simple: restart the build agent service. In my case it was: "Visual Studio Team Foundation Build Service Host 2013"

score 1 · Answer 8 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

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If you don't deploy from the build server, then just turn off the Microsoft.WebApplication.targets on the build server. See my answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/35781566/4955344

edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

Community

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answered Mar 03 '16 at 20:04

Alex R.

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 05 '19 at 03:44

I also met this error on VS2017; then i comment out below two items:

<!--<Import Project="$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" /><Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />-->

reopen the solution , the project can be load successfully again. (i don't know how this happen, because this project can be load normally before, maybe i had added some new feature through 'vs-installer.exe' recently)

can you please add documentation link to support your fact? – Shanteshwar Inde Sep 05 '19 at 04:35 — Shanteshwar Inde, Sep 05 '19 at 04:35

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 25 '22 at 09:04

1

If you have installed the Visual Studio Build Tools 2022, you might need to modify the installation to add Web development build tools

answered Aug 25 '22 at 09:04

Ben Curthoys

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Is it possible to install these tools in VS 2022 - MacOS? – twoLeftFeet Jan 18 '23 at 15:57

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 24 '19 at 16:21

Here's some PowerShell that fixed this issue for me by adding in the missing reference in MSBuild.exe.config on my Build server. Adjust paths to your VS version / targets path.

[xml]$msbuild_config = Get-Content -Path "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe.config"
$webApplicationTarget = $msbuild_config.configuration.msbuildToolsets.toolset.property[0].Clone()
$webApplicationTarget.name = "MSWebApplicationTargets"
$webApplicationTarget.value = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\WebApplications"
$msbuild_config.configuration.msbuildToolsets.toolset.AppendChild($webApplicationTarget)
$msbuild_config.save("C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe.config")```

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Feb 09 '21 at 04:52

Here is what I did to solve this problem in vs19. I navigated to this path:-

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio

and noticed that \vxx.0 (the particular directory vs was complaining about was not present). In my case vs was looking for \v16.0 which was not there although \v15.0, \v14.0 and \v12.0 were there. So I manually created a v16.0 folder and copied WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplications.targets from v14.0 to the v16.0 folder and the issue was fixed, however I am not sure if this was the best way to fix this problem, it seemed kinda hacky. And I was unable to change this path in the .csproj file because the path was probably stored in a variable like $(MSBuildBinPath) and it was not hard coded there.

The imported project Microsoft.WebApplications.targets was not found

12 Answers12

Why do this with `Microsoft.WebApplication.targets`

Linked

The imported project Microsoft.WebApplications.targets was not found

12 Answers12

Why do this with Microsoft.WebApplication.targets

Linked

Why do this with `Microsoft.WebApplication.targets`