Requesting help with building the repo

[Const-me]

Actual behavior:

build.cmd fails, prints pages of messages like this: C:\Temp\wpf\src\Microsoft.DotNet.Wpf\src\DirectWriteForwarder\DirectWriteForwarder.vcxproj(28,5): error MSB4019: The im ported project "C:\Temp\wpf\.tools\msbuild\16.5.0-alpha\tools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VC\v160\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" wa s not found. Confirm that the expression in the Import declaration "C:\Temp\wpf\.tools\msbuild\16.5.0-alpha\tools\MSBui ld\Microsoft\VC\v160\\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

I've checked and indeed, there's no VC directory in that location. Your build.cmd has downloaded the msbuild with the following subfolders in MSBuild\Microsoft:

Microsoft.NET.Build.Extensions
NuGet
VisualStudio

None of them contains Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props file.

Expected behavior:

Built.cmd should work.

Minimal repro:

Not available. Checkout the repository.

[vatsan-madhavan]

Have you installed the workloads outlined at https://github.com/dotnet/wpf/blob/master/Documentation/developer-guide.md#machine-setup ?

Fixing up the title. You may not be able to build yet, but the build not broken. We hope you will be able to build soon.

[Const-me]

@vatsan-madhavan Thanks for your help. Indeed, I had couple VS2019 components missing.

However, I think you should fix a few things.

1. “Follow the Building CoreFX on Windows instructions.” link on this page is broken with HTTP 404:
   https://github.com/dotnet/wpf/blob/master/Documentation/developer-guide.md#machine-setup Web archive has a copy, but that version is for VS2017, I'm not sure if it's good enough.

Probably for this reason, I’m unable to open visual studio projects, i.e. can only build from command-line. This is less than ideal, the main reason why I was setting this up is to use the IDE. BTW, my ultimate goal is fix this this issue in WPF, and I was thinking about replacing D3DImage framework class with a custom equivalent.

2. When your setup script fails to detect VS2019 with required components, it downloads and unpacks this ZIP: https://dotnet.myget.org/F/roslyn-tools/api/v2/package/RoslynTools.MSBuild/16.5.0-alpha/ That package lacks the tools\MSBuild\Microsoft\VC subfolder required to build WPF. Instead of trying to do xcopy deployment and failing to do so, I think you better throw an exception complaining about the missing VS2019 or some required components of it.

[vatsan-madhavan]

Good suggestions.

We should probably update the link to https://github.com/dotnet/cli/blob/master/Documentation/project-docs/developer-guide.md. We do have to override that guidance and point out that building this repo actually requires this:

build -pack

WPF repo always uses -pack for building.

We refer to VS2019 in the README.md (https://github.com/dotnet/wpf) albeit in a slightly different context, but I think we should be clearer. In fact, global.json (https://github.com/dotnet/wpf/blob/master/global.json) lists vs.version needed to build this repo.

These are uncontroversial and straightforward changes, I think. If you are able, please consider contributing 😄

For #2, something like #2307 might help. It's a work in progress.

[hymccord]

Is corefx still required to build the wpf repo or is it now required to build the runtime repo since it has migrated there?

[pchaurasia14]

WPF local builds are working perfectly fine using build.cmd.
If you encounter any problems, please raise a new issue.