This repo is designed to compose together existing NuGet package assets to create a functional version of MSBuild which can be distributed via xcopy / nuget.

To build the xcopy msbuild you need to have a minimal Build Tools 2019 installation on your machine. When creating this installation make sure to check only the following options:

• .Net Desktop Build Tools
• .Net Core 2.1 development tools (right column)
• .Net Framework 4 - 4.6 development tools

Then to build the xcopy NuPkg run the following command:

.\build-msbuild.ps1 -buildToolsDir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools"

That will put the MSBuild output into binaries\msbuild.

In order to build most .NET projects MSBuild will need the .NET Reference assemblies. These are a separate component from MSBuild and hence this repo produces a separate package for them. To produce this packaeg run the following command.

.\build-reference-assemblies.ps1

Note that MSBuild needs to be told of their location via TargetFrameworkRootPath. This can be specified on the command line or via an environment variable:

msbuild /p:TargetFrameworkRootPath=path\to\refassemblynuget

Both of the build scripts accept the following arguments to control the name and version of the package:

• packageName: Name of the package
• packageVersion: Version of the package