Is there a way to conditionally run Visual Studio Post Build Steps

Question

What we are looking for is: while compiling the same configuration, say Release|Win32, is there a way to only do the postbuild steps sometimes. Like, if I am on a dev machine do all the post-build steps or if I am on a build server then don't do them. Or is the only way to accomplish this is by implementing a new configuration?

Commenters: Thanks for the ideas, we do not want to use scripts as they would be one more thing to maintain, and going to MSBuild proj files would be a lot of headache at this point as well. Thanks for trying though.

Answer 1

If you want to crack into MSBuild itself (.*proj files are essentially just MSBuild scripts), you can run machine-specific steps post-build: http://flimflan.com/blog/MachineSpecificTasksWithMSBuild.aspx

"This takes advantage of the fact that all environment variables are immediately available as properties in an MSBuild script; and that all Windows machines (that I've worked on recently) have the COMPUTERNAME environment variable set."

Answer 2

If you don't like to have a separate build configuration (which I think would make most sense) you could e.g. define an environment variable on your build server which you then can test for in you post-build script.

Regards, divo

Answer 3

You could use environment variables in the post build script. Something like this:

if NOT %ComputerName% == DEVMACHINENAME GOTO end
c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\ngen "$(TargetPath)"
:end

Answer 4

Would it be possible to implement your post build steps as an external script which is always executed, but has logic to conditionally perform the steps you require?