Build automation: MSBuild vs. Windows Mobile SDK

Question

Hello,

I'm trying to automate the build of the project I'm working on. My ultimate goal is to eventually have a continuous integration server and so far everything was great. In order to find out what is the minimal setup I can have for my project, I started configuring a freshly installed system and stumbled with the requirement to have Visual Studio IDE installed in order to install Windows Mobile 5 SDK. I don't feel it is right to have a full-blown IDE on the build server. Did anyone try to actually automate builds with WM 5.0 projects? Are they automateable at all?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I don't have experience with Windows Mobile build automation, but I do have experience with general purpose build servers.

I'm fairly certain that you're going to need Visual Studio installed either way if you're planning on automating your build process using things like msbuild and mstest.

Answer 2

You can install de SDK alone to use msbuild.
It is not a good idea to install the IDE on the Continuos Integration server. That's why we use NUnit instead of mstest.

Answer 3

While I agree that it's not a good idea to install an IDE on a CI or build server, unfortunately you are correct.

To install Mobile SDK 5 you need to install Visual Studio (2005 or 2008). You will also need to install Mobile Device Center / ActiveSync depending on your build machine OS. If you are running a server OS for your build machines (such as Windows Server 2008) you will have to enable "Desktop Experience" and/or install windows media player to install the SDK (yeah that's an odd one) which is required to install Mobile Device Center / ActiveSync.

We currently have Windows Server 2008 build machines building and testing our product which includes a significant Windows Mobile / .NET CF codebase. Our build even creates mobile CAB installs, so _**yes it is possible**_.

We are currently using TeamCity for CI, which is an excellent product and I'd highly recommend. Using TeamCity allows the build agents to be on separate machines.