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Is there a free tool that allows us to create / edit the msbuild projects and automatically integrates with TFS?

I found:

1 - http://www.attrice.info/msbuild/

2 - http://www.finalbuilder.com/home.aspx

By cons they are not free (Licensing Website; unlimited exceeds $ 3,500)

MSBuild is free because it comes with the framework 3.5 but I found it annoying that whenever I have changes to make in my build, I am forced to change the MSBuild build file (xml ) by hand!

Abdelrahman ELGAMAL
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  • What kind of changes are you making manually? – Bernard Jan 10 '11 at 15:45
  • The MSBuild Sidekick is only $55 for a single user license. Not everyone in your organization is going to be using it, just get it for the people you trust to mess with the MSBuild file. – Robaticus Jan 10 '11 at 20:15

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In the 2010 release of TFS\Visual Studio ALM introduced Window Workflow as an "option"(I use quotes since not sure exactly how to describe WF\MsBuild but more info here SO3004671)... but since you mention framework 3.5 perhaps you mean that use are using TFS 2008.

Note Finalbuild does much more that just deal with MsBuild, it has many other 'tasks' that be added to a FinalBuilder script. Also another option along the same lines as FinalBuilder is VisBuildPro. I believe there is a trial version of either you could test out.

As for cost you probably don't need a site license at least to start with. Really you probably just need as many as the # build machines you have and\or the number of people creating build scripts (depending upon where they do their work).

I have created builds in the past that are mainly using TFS as the method to schedule or kick off a build and get the source (and do the build reporting) but then do the rest of the work a FinalBuilder script.

Community
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Gern Blanston
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  • Thnx, VisBuildPro is also expensive I have some tools, like: [open source] : MSBuildTasks – Sandcastle Help File Builder – Gallio – Nant I didn’t have to take my decision choosing between these tools, and I want to take your opinion. Here you are my requirements : 1- A free tool (open source) which could be integrated with Visual studio 2008 and TFS 2010 2- Copy/Past files 3- Backup/Restore DB – Executing SQL statements 4- Unit Test execution 5- Execution of *.exe / *.msi /etc… 6- Build reposting P.S. Please the empirical programmer,tell me more about your Build using TFS – Abdelrahman ELGAMAL Jan 12 '11 at 16:37