Why does MSBuild look in C for Microsoft Cpp Default props instead of c Program Files x86 MSBuild error MSB4019

Question

When I run msbuild to build a vc2010 project I get the following error   error MSB4019  The imported project  C  Microsoft Cpp Default props  was not found   Confirm that the path in the  lt Import gt  declaration is correct  and that the file exists  on disk     msbuild located c  Program File  x86  MSBuild  HKLM SOFTWARE Wow6432Node Microsoft MSBuild ToolVersions V4 0 VCTargetsPath set to    MSBuildExtensionsPath32  Microsoft Cpp v4 0  when running msbuild  verbosity diag as good system shows MSBuildExtensionsPath32  MSBuildExtensionsPath64  MSBuildExtensionsPath set as Environment at start of build setting MSBuildExtensionsPath32  MSBuildExtensionsPath64  MSBuildExtensionsPath set as environment variables in shell doesn t cause them to show as Environment at start of build   Fixes Attempted   Uninstalled  net 4 5  repaired  net 4 0 Set MSBuildExtensionsPath32  MSBuildExtensionsPath64  MSBuildExtensionsPath in system variables    It appears that MSBuildExtensionsPath32 isn t being set properly and setting MSBuildExtensionsPath doesn t help  SET MSBuildExtensionsPath  C  Program Files MSBuild    Please let me know if you have any ideas what s blocking the proper setting of this variable

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Installing Microsoft Visual C   2010 Service Pack 1 Compiler Update for the Windows SDK 7 1 fixed the MSB4019 errors that I was getting building on Windows7 x64   The readme of that update states that the recommended order is   Visual Studio 2010 Windows SDK 7 1 Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Visual C   2010 SP1 Compiler Update for the Windows SDK 7 1

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On 64-bit systems  MSBuild defaults to the following properties  where C  is SystemDrive    MSBuildExtensionsPath   C  Program Files  x86  MSBuild MSBuildExtensionsPath32   C  Program Files  x86  MSBuild MSBuildExtensionsPath64   C  Program Files MSBuild   If it doesn t  it means you either have some custom third-party overrides targets installed  or your MSBuild installation is corrupted   Things to try    Repair  NET installation Apply latest Visual Studio Service Pack Set MSBuildExtensionsPath manually as above  note the x86 part on 64-bit machines

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Instead of setting a fixed path try this in your post-build command-line first   SET VCTargetsPath   VCTargetsPath    The variable    VCTargetsPath   seems to be a c  -related visual-studio-macro which is not shown in c -sdk-projects as a macro but is still available there

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For the record  the file Microsoft Cpp Default props can modify the env var VCTargetsPath and make subsequent usages of that var incorrect  I had that problem and solved it by setting VCTargetsPath10 and VCTargetsPath11 to the same value than VCTargetsPath   This should be adapted according to the VS version you are using

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I was facing the same issue with MSBuild for VS 17  I solved this by applying the following steps      In my case the Microsoft Cpp Default props file was located at C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 BuildTools Common7 IDE VC VCTargets so I created VCTragetsPath string in the registry under  HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 4 0 with value  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 BuildTools Common7 IDE VC VCTargets I also made my Jenkins run as an admin user   This solved my issue

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I m seeing this in a VS2017 environment  My build script calls VsDevCmd bat first  and to solve this problem I set the VCTargetsPath environment variable after VsDevCmd and before calling MSBuild   set VCTargetsPath  VCIDEInstallDir VCTargets

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MSBuild in an independent build tool that is frequently bundled with other tools  It may have been installed on your computer with  NET  older versions   Visual Studio  newer versions   or even Team Foundation Build    MSBuild needs configuration files  compilers  etc  a ToolSet  that matches the version of Visual Studio or TFS that will use it  as well as the version of  NET against which source code will be compiled    Depending on how MSBuild was installed  the configuration files may be in one or more of these paths     C  Program Files  x86  MSBuild Microsoft Cpp v4 0  C  Program Files  x86  MSBuild Microsoft Cpp v4 0 V120  C  Program Files  x86  MSBuild Microsoft Cpp v4 0 V140     As described in other answers  a registry item and or environmental variable point must to the ToolSet path     The VCTargetsPath key under  HKLM SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 4 0 The VCTargetsPath environmental variable    Occasionally  an operation like installing a tool will leave the registry and or environmental variable set incorrectly  The other answers are all variations on fixing them    The only thing I have to add is the environmental variable didn t work for me when I left off the trailing

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I got this problem when publishing a cocos2d-x application using their command line tool  which calls MSBuild  I m using Win 7 64-bit  VS2013 express  cocos2d-x version 3 3   NET Framework 4 5 installed   I fixed the problem by setting the following before running the cocos py publish command   SET VCTargetsPath C  Program Files  x86  MSBuild Microsoft Cpp v4 0 V120

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Adding to Chris Gong s answer about VS2017 2019 above  I don t yet have comments permission    If VS 2019 Build Tools are installed rather than the full Visual Studio then file paths are slightly different  VCTargetsPath should then be  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Community MSBuild Microsoft VC v160    Also note the terminating backslash - required at least in my case  TFS2017  VS2019 Build tools   Corresponding change to the PATH entry as well

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Installing  Microsoft Visual C   2010 Service Pack 1 Compiler Update for the Windows SDK 7 1 worked for me  However  I experienced issues with the update because I already had VS 2010 and VS 2010 SP1 installed  As mentioned by   Xv above  the readme htm file contains solutions for the most common installation issues in the  Known Issues  section  I would follow the instructions in the readme htm and reboot your machine after each troubleshooting attempt because some installs write to your registry

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I have had the same problem recently and after installing different packages in different order it was just getting very messy  Then I have found this repo - https   github com felixrieseberg windows-build-tools  npm install --global windows-build-tools  It installs Python  amp  VS Build tools that are required to compile most node modules  It worked a treat

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Nothing else worked for me except  setting the path as   C  Program Files Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 BuildTools MSBuild 15 0

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For Visual Studio 2017 and 2019 on Windows 10 A lot of the answers here apply to older versions of Visual Studio  What worked for me  if using Visual Studio 2017 Community version  was setting an environment variable called VCTargetsPath and giving it a value of C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Community Common7 IDE VC VCTargets  If using Visual Studio 2019 Community version  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Community MSBuild Microsoft VC v160  Other answers here set this variable to c  Program Files  x86  MSBuild Microsoft Cpp v4 0 v140 but I noticed in my visual studio installation  there was no folder called Microsoft Cpp in my MSBuild folder  So keep this in mind as well as the fact that the path above is for the Community version of Visual Studio 2017  Also  make sure that your MSBuild path in your environment variables points to the correct version of MSBuild if you re using Visual Studio 2017 Community version  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Community MSBuild 15 0 Bin  If you re using Visual Studio 2019 Community version  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Community MSBuild Current Bin

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The registry entries for MSBuild key worked fine to me  It s important to remember that it must be done for 64-bit or 32-bit branches depending on which version of MSBuild you run  I wouldn t recommend to use environment variables as it may cause problems in different versions of MSBuild   This registry file fixes that for both cases   Windows Registry Editor Version 5 00   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath12      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath12      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120        VCTargetsPath14      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath14      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 10 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 11 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 12 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath12      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath12      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 14 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath12      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath12      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120        VCTargetsPath14      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath14      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath12      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath12      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120        VCTargetsPath14      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath14      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 10 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 11 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 12 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath12      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath12      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120         HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0 14 0   VCTargetsPath      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140        VCTargetsPath10      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath10      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0        VCTargetsPath11      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath11      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V110        VCTargetsPath12      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath12      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V120        VCTargetsPath14      MSBuild   ValueOrDefault    VCTargetsPath14      MSBuildExtensionsPath32   Microsoft Cpp  v4 0  V140

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I just added VCTargetsPath  c       as an environment variable to my Hudson job

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I had this problem on Visual Studio 2015 edition  When I used cmake to generate a project this error appeared    error MSB4019  The imported project  D  Microsoft Cpp Default props  was not  found  I fixed it by adding a String      VCTargetsPath   with value        MSBuildExtensionsPath32  Microsoft Cpp v4 0 V140   in the registry path      HKLM SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 14 0

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I came across this error by writing a Build script that would put MSBuild on the  PATH  after recursively digging through the C  Windows Microsoft NET folder for any found MSBuild exe files  The last found hit was the directory that was put on the path  Since the dir command would hit the Framework64 folder after Framework I was getting one of the 64bit MSBuilds put on my path  I was trying to build a Visual Studio 2010 solution and wound up altering my search string from C  Windows Microsoft NET to C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework so that I would wind up with a 32bit MSBuild exe  Now my solution file builds

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EDIT  This applies to older versions of Visual Studio   MSBuild  specifically MSVC2015    With more modern versions  MSBuild is included in Visual Studio Build Tools 2019  and compilers are located in different places and detected in different ways  This is due to a mismatch of installed MSBuild toolsets and registry settings  It can happen if you did one or more of the following   Install multiple Visual Studio versions in the wrong order Uninstall one or more versions of Visual Studio Manually make registry changes or modifications to the Visual Studio installation  The only safe and reliable solution I know of is to reinstall your OS  If your project needs multiple versions of Visual Studio to build  install the oldest version first  Then fix your code so you can use one single tool to build it  or you or your colleagues will be in the same mess again soon  If this is not an option for you  first read https   stackoverflow com a 41786593 2279059 for a better understanding of the problem and what the various  quot solutions quot  actually do  Then  depending on your Visual Studio version and setup  one of the other answers or variations of them may eventually help  Some more hints   If you don t want to reinstall your OS but try to fix your registry instead  you may want to try this answer  https   stackoverflow com a 38503503 2279059

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In my case  I ve added an Environment variable VCTargetPath with path       C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual   Studio 2017 Professional Common7 IDE VC VCTargets          at the end is crucial  as the project solution files has a reference to  Microsoft cpp targets  file    Also  starting from Visual Studio 2017 MSBUILD comes along within Visual Studio - so  the PATH variable needs to be updated with      C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual   Studio 2017 Professional MSBuild 15 0 Bin   Updating VCTargetPath and MSBUILD s PATH variables and building fixed the error

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For those who didn t follow the MS proscribed order  see Xv s answer  you can still fix the problem   MSBuild uses the VCTargetsPath to locate default cpp properties but cannot because the registry lacks this String Value    Check for the String Value   Launch regedit Navigator to HKLM SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 4 0 Inspect VCTargetsPath key    The value should       MSBuildExtensionsPath32  Microsoft Cpp v4 0      To fix   Launch regedit Navigator to HKLM SOFTWARE Microsoft MSBuild ToolsVersions 4 0  Add String Value VCTargetsPath  Set Value to    MSBuildExtensionsPath32  Microsoft Cpp v4 0      Note  HKLM stands for HKEY LOCAL MACHINE

[msbuild] Why does MSBuild look in C:\ for Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props instead of c:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild? ( error MSB4019)

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