When do you need the Windows SDK for MSBuild?

Question

I'm setting up my first build server for .NET 3.5 projects, and found this interesting line in the MSBuild log after a successful build of a simple test application:

Could not locate the expected version of the Microsoft Windows SDK. Looked for a location specified in the "InstallationFolder" value of the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A". If your build process does not need the SDK then this can be ignored.

When exactly would your build process need the SDK? I don't want to install it on the build server if it's not going to be necessary, but I also don't want to discover that I need it by having a build mysteriously break.

At the moment, I only have .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed on the server.

Answer 1

If you need to compile C or C++ code - to the best of my knowledge.

Answer 2

The SDK has a couple of additional tools that are **sometimes** used, depending on the contents of your project - such as (IIRC) the reports compiler. But for most things, no: you don't need the SDK. I installed in on my build server just to get clean output ;-p