MSBuild

The Microsoft Build Engine is a platform for building applications. This engine, also known as MSBuild, provides an XML schema for a project file that controls how the build platform processes and builds software. Visual Studio uses MSBuild, but MSBuild can run without Visual Studio. By invoking msbuild.exe on your project or solution file, you can orchestrate and build products in environments where Visual Studio isn't installed. For the full supported experience, you will need to have Visual Studio 2022 or higher. 1. Install Visual Studio 2022. Select the following Workloads: .NET desktop development .NET Core cross-platform development 2. Ensure long path support is enabled at the Windows level. 3. Open a Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022 prompt. 4. Clone the source code: git clone You may have to download Git first. 5. Run . build.cmd from the root of the repo to build the code. This also restores packages needed to open the projects in Visual Studio. 6. Open MSBuild.slnx or MSBuild.Dev.slnf in Visual Studio 2022. This newly-built MSBuild will be located at artifacts bin bootstrap net472 MSBuild Current Bin MSBuild.exe . It may not work for all scenarios, including C++ builds. MSBuild can be run on Unix systems that support .NET Core. Set-up instructions can be viewed on the wiki: Building Testing and Debugging on .Net Core MSBuild You can turn on localized builds via the /p:LocalizedBuild=true command line argument. For more information on localized builds and how to make contributions to MSBuild's translations, see our localization documentation Interested in contributing? Before you contribute, please read through the contributing and developer guides to get an idea of what kinds of pull requests we accept. MSBuild . Microsoft.Build.CommandLine is the entrypoint for the Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild.exe). Microsoft.Build . The Microsoft.Build namespaces contain types that provide programmatic access to, and control of, the MSBuild engine. Microsoft.Build.Framework . The Microsoft.Build.Framework namespace contains the types that define how tasks and loggers interact with the MSBuild engine. For additional information on this component, see our Microsoft.Build.Framework wiki page. Microsoft.Build.Utilities . The Microsoft.Build.Utilities namespace provides helper classes that you can use to create your own MSBuild loggers and tasks.