How do I specify the platform for MSBuild

Question

I am trying to use MSBuild to build a solution with a specified target platform  I need both binaries  x86 and x64   This is how I tried it   C  WINDOWS Microsoft NET Framework v3 5 gt MsBuild SolutionPath Solution sln  t Rebuild  p Configuration Release  p Platform  x86    However the build always fails if the platform is different from  Any CPU   What am I doing wrong   This is the while output MSBuild prints      C  WINDOWS Microsoft NET Framework v3 5 MsBuild   SolutionPath Solution sln  t Rebuild    p Configuration Release    p Platform  x86  Microsoft  R  Build   Engine Version 3 5 30729 1  Microsoft    NET Framework  Version   2 0 50727 3082  Copyright  C  Microsoft Corporation 2007  All rights   reserved       Build started 1 7 2010 8 28 10    Project  SolutionPath Solution sln  on   node 0  Rebuild targe t s      SolutionPath Solution sln   error   MSB4126  The specified sol ution   configuration  Release x86  is   invalid  Please specify a valid   solution c onfiguration using the   Configuration and Platform properties    e g  MSBuild exe Solution sln    p Configuration Debug    p Platform  Any CPU   or leave those   prope rties blank to use the default   solution configuration  Done Building   Project  SolutionPath Solution sln     Rebuild t arget s   -- FAILED       Build FAILED        SolutionPath Solution sln   Rebuild   target   1  -     ValidateSolutionConfiguration target    -    SolutionPath Solution sln   error MSB4126  The specified s olution   configuration  Release x86  is   invalid  Please specify a valid   solution  configuration using the   Configuration and Platform properties    e g  MSBuild ex e Solution sln    p Configuration Debug    p Platform  Any CPU   or leave those   pro perties blank to use the default   solution configuration   0 Warning s  1 Error s        Time Elapsed 00 00 00 03   If I try to build it for x86 x64 with devenv it works perfectly  however I am trying to set up a build server without installing all the necessary versions of Visual Studio  By the way  if there is a better free tool  that supports  NET framework 4  out there  I d love to hear about it

User · Answer

There is an odd case I got in VS2017  about the space between    Any    and  CPU   this is not about using command prompt  If you have a build project file  which could call other solution files  You can try to add the space between Any and CPU  like this  the Platform property value    lt MSBuild Projects  quot   SolutionToBuild2  quot  Properties   quot Configuration   ProjectConfiguration  Platform Any CPU Rerun   MsBuildReRun   quot    gt   Before I fix this build issue  it is like this  ProjectPlatform is a global variable  was set to  AnyCPU     lt MSBuild Projects  quot   SolutionToBuild1  quot  Properties   quot Configuration   ProjectConfiguration  Platform   ProjectPlatform  Rerun   MsBuildReRun   quot    gt   Also  we have a lot projects being called using    ProjectPlatform   which is  AnyCPU  and work fine  If we open proj file  we can see lines liket this and it make sense   lt PropertyGroup Condition  quot    Configuration    Platform       Release AnyCPU  quot  gt   So my conclusion is   AnyCPU  works for calling project files  but not for calling solution files  for calling solution files  using  Any CPU   add the space   For now  I am not sure if it is a bug of VS project file or MSBuild  I am using VS2017 with VS2017 build tools installed

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If you want to build your solution for x86 and x64  your solution must be configured for both platforms  Actually you just have an Any CPU configuration   How to check the available configuration for a project  To check the available configuration for a given project  open the project file    csproj for example  and look for a PropertyGroup with the right Condition   If you want to build in Release mode for x86  you must have something like this in your project file    lt PropertyGroup Condition      Configuration    Platform       Release x86    gt         lt  PropertyGroup gt    How to create and edit the configuration in Visual Studio    source  microsoft com       source  msdn com       source  msdn com     How to create and edit the configuration  on MSDN

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For VS2017 and 2019    with the modern core library SDK project files  the platform can be changed during the build process  Here s an example to change to the anycpu platform  just before the built-in CoreCompile task runs   lt Project Sdk  quot Microsoft NET Sdk quot   gt      lt Target Name  quot SwitchToAnyCpu quot  BeforeTargets  quot CoreCompile quot   gt       lt Message Text  quot Current Platform   Platform  quot    gt       lt Message Text  quot Current PlatformTarget   PlatformName  quot    gt       lt PropertyGroup gt         lt Platform gt anycpu lt  Platform gt         lt PlatformTarget gt anycpu lt  PlatformTarget gt       lt  PropertyGroup gt       lt Message Text  quot New Platform   Platform  quot    gt       lt Message Text  quot New PlatformTarget   PlatformTarget  quot    gt     lt  Target gt    lt  Project gt   In my case  I m building an FPGA with BeforeTargets and AfterTargets tasks  but compiling a C  app in the main CoreCompile   partly as I may want some sort of command-line app  and partly because I could not figure out how to omit or override CoreCompile  To build for multiple  concurrent binaries such as x86 and x64  either a separate  manual build task would be needed or two separate project files with the respective  lt PlatformTarget gt x86 lt  PlatformTarget gt  and  lt PlatformTarget gt x64 lt  PlatformTarget gt  settings in the example  above

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If you re trying to do this from the command line  you may be encountering an issue where a machine-wide environment variable  Platform  is being set for you and working against you  I can reproduce this if I use the VS2012 Command window instead of a regular windows Command window   At the command prompt type      set platform   In a VS2012 Command window  I have a value of  X64  preset  That seems to interfere with whatever is in my solution file   In a regular Command window  the  set  command results in a  variable not defined  message   which is good   If the result of your  set  command above returns no environment variable value  you should be good to go

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When you define different build configurations in your visual studio solution for your projects using a tool like ConfigurationTransform  you may want your Teamcity build  to build you a specified build configuration  You may have build configurations e g   Debug  Release  Dev  UAT  Prod etc defined  This means  you will have MSBuild Configuration transformation setup for the different configurations  These different configurations are usually used when you have different configurations  e g  different database connection strings  for the different environment  This is very common because you would have a different database for your production environment from your playground development environment  They say a picture is worth a thousand words  please see the image below how you would specify multiple build configurations in Teamcity  In the commandline input text box  specify as below  p OutputPath Publish Configuration Dev Here  I have specified two commandline build configurations arguments OutputPath and build Configuration with values Publish and Dev respectively  but it could have been  UAT or Prod configuration  If you want more  simply separate them by semi-colon

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Hopefully this helps someone out there  For platform I was specifying  quot Any CPU quot   changed it to  quot AnyCPU quot  and that fixed the problem  msbuild C  Users Project Project publishproj  p Platform  quot AnyCPU quot    p DeployOnBuild true  p PublishProfile local  p Configuration Debug  If you look at your  csproj file you ll see the correct platform name to use

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In MSBuild or Teamcity use command line  MSBuild yourproject sln  property Configuration Release  property Platform x64   or use shorter form   MSBuild yourproject sln  p Configuration Release  p Platform x64   However you need to set up platform in your project anyway  see the answer by Julien Hoarau

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In Visual Studio 2019  version 16 8 4  you can just add  lt Prefer32Bit gt false lt  Prefer32Bit gt

[msbuild] How do I specify the platform for MSBuild?

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