"the outputpath property is not set for this project" error

Question

I have a multi project solution in VS08. I just added a new Configuration called Release-VersionIncrement to the solution, specifying "use release" configuration as baseline. All project files were updated with that configuration. However, when I am trying to compile a specific project using this configuration, I get the following error:

Error 5 The OutputPath property is not set for this project. Please check to make sure that you have specified a valid Configuration/Platform combination. Configuration='Release-VersionIncrement' Platform='AnyCPU' C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.Common.targets 539 9 DataConversion

What's happening here? The project compiles fine in Release or Debug configuratin.

Answer 1

Usually this happens when the OutputPath property of the project file is blank. Project files are just MSBuild files. To edit in Visual Studio: Right click on the proejct, pick "Unload project" then right click on the unloaded project and select "Edit ...".

Look for the Release-Versionincrement property group. It should look something like

<PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release-VersionIncrement|AnyCPU' ">
  <OutputPath>bin\Release-VersionIncrement\</OutputPath>
  <DefineConstants>TRACE</DefineConstants>
  <Optimize>true</Optimize>
  <DebugType>pdbonly</DebugType>
  <PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>
  <CodeAnalysisUseTypeNameInSuppression>true</CodeAnalysisUseTypeNameInSuppression>
  <CodeAnalysisModuleSuppressionsFile>GlobalSuppressions.cs</CodeAnalysisModuleSuppressionsFile>
  <ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
</PropertyGroup>

The important one there it the OutputPath, does it exist for your project file? If not add it and try again.

Answer 2

The issue had to do with my project configuration. Here is the scenario:

Solution A references:

Project X references Project Y
Project Y Solution B (the one I am trying to buid): Project X Project Z

My solution was to create a configuration with the same name for Solution A, rebuild it, and then rebuild Solution B. This fixed the problem.

Answer 3

Hi , I'd god the same problem when I used msbuild first.My solusion is : use the OutputPath property definitely.Like this: msbuild XXX.csproj /p:OutputPath=bin\Debug. Good luck. ken

Answer 4

I have also seen this error when our build agent was configured to run platform "Any CPU" (with spaces as displayed in Visual Studio) rather than "AnyCPU" (one word as specified in the project file).