MSBuild Using Wrong Version of Assembly to Compile RDLC File

Question

I am using the reportviewer control from VS 2010 to create client side reports (rdlc). Everything is working fine on my development machine, and when I manually compile (via VS2010) and manually deploy to a test machine that doesn't have development tools installed.

In order to get the test machine to work (without installing VS2010 or ReportViewer.exe), I had to add references in my project to Microsoft.ReportViewer.Winforms, Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common and Microsoft.ReportViewer.ProcessingModel and have them all "Copy Local".

I have the rdlc files configured for Build Action => embedded resources. This is the default setting when adding a new rdlc to the project. I am open to configuring this otherwise if this would resolve this problem (no idea if its related).

The problem: since adding the rdlc files, the solution no longer builds on the build server. I have installed ReportViewer.exe on the build server, and have verified that the required assemblies exist in the GAC. The .Net 4 framework is NOT installed on the build server--I don't think this is required because the solution targets the 3.5 runtime.

I believe the root of the problem is the following from the build log:

Target "RunRdlCompiler": Building target "RunRdlCompiler" completely. Output file "obj\Release\RdlCompile.compiled" does not exist. Using "RdlCompile" task from assembly "Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a". Task "RdlCompile": Report\RDLC\GreenReport.rdlc (0,0): error rsInvalidReportDefinition: The report definition is not valid. Details: The report definition has an invalid target namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2008/01/reportdefinition' which cannot be upgraded.

From what I can tell, Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common version 10.0.0.0 is what should be used to "compile" the rdlc, but MSBuild appears to be using 9.0.0.0. I believe if I could force it to use the right version (which IS installed in the GAC), the solution would compile.

Answer 1

Turns out I did need the .Net 4.0 Framework, and more specifically the 4.x version of MSBuild, which uses the newer version of the Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common library.

So even if you are targeting the 3.5 framework, if you create the rdlc with VS2010 it will expect to be "compiled" using 4.0 tools.

Answer 2

This is because your Microsoft.Common.Targets file is pointing to the 9.0 version of the assembly.

If you look in [sysdir]\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5 you will find Microsoft.Common.targets, which is driving a lot of what MSBuild does. This verion of the common targets file points to [Program Files]\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\ReportingServices\Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets forcing MSBuild to run with the 9.0 version.

When you installed .NET 4.0, you got a new common targets file in the v4.0.x directory, this new one now points to [Program Files]\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\ReportingServices\Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets which points to the 10.0 version of the ReportViewer assemblies.

The 10.0 ReportViewer is compiled against .NET 3.5 and intended to work in both 3.5 and 4.0. You could very likely get rid of the .NET 4.0 framework, and alter your 3.5 common targets file to point to the new ReportingServices target file, and it should work. In theory anyway, I've never actually tried it. You may be best off just sticking with 4.0, as that's what we intended when we designed the MSBuild support for the new viewer.