How to make MSBuild reference the right assemblies?

Question

I'm trying to get MSBuild working on a project that has just been moved to TFS2008. The solution was huge, so it was split into 5 team projects, A-E. Each one has only one solution but several projects. A is relient on B-E being built first. We need to build both debug and release versions of everything, which is fine, but when we compile A in release mode it uses the debug versions of B-E. Having looked in the proj files of the projects in A, their assembly references have been set to point to the debug versions of the libraries in B-E. Is there any way using an MSBuild proj file to make the release of A reference the release versions of projects in B-E? So far i've tried adding
<PropertyGroup>
<AssemblySearchPaths>
$(Configuration)
$(AssemblySearchPaths)
</AssemblySearchPaths>
</PropertyGroup>
to the MSBuild proj file, but it doesn't make any difference. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I think you can do this:

<PropertyGroup>
    <SomeReferencePath>..\Your\Other\Build\Path\</LibraryReference>
</PropertyGroup>

Then include this in the target:

Properties="ReferencePath=$(SomeReferencePath)"

That will instruct the compiler to look in that reference path to resolve it's referenced assemblies.

I think =:)

[Edit: this would all go within a new msbuild script that builds all your sub projects.]