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What's New in MSBuild 12.0

  • Article

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

MSBuild is now installed as part of Visual Studio rather than as part of the .NET Framework. The current MSBuild version number is 12.0. If you want to install MSBuild separately, download the installation package from MSBuild Download.

Changed Path

MSBuild is now installed directly under %ProgramFiles%—for example, in C:\Program Files\MSBuild\.

Changed Properties

The following MSBuild properties are changed as a result of the new version number:

  • MSBuildToolsVersion for this version of tools is 12.0.

  • MSBuildToolsPath is now %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\12.0\bin on 32-bit operating systems, or %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\12.0\bin\amd64 on 64-bit operating systems.

  • ToolsVersion values can be found in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\12.0 for 32-bit operating systems or HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\12.0 for 64-bit operating systems.

  • The SDK35ToolsPath and SDK40ToolsPath properties point to the .NET Framework SDK that's packaged with this version of Visual Studio (for example, 8.1A for the 4.X tools).

New Properties

  • MSBuildFrameworkToolsPath is a new property that has a value of %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319 on 32-bit operating systems or %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319 on 64-bit operating systems. This is a replacement for MSBuildToolsPath that can be used to point to the .NET Framework tools and utilities.

  • MSBuildToolsPath and MSBuildFrameworkToolsPath have 32-bit equivalents—MSBuildToolsPath32 and MSBuildFrameworkToolsPath32—that always point to the 32-bit location, regardless of whether 32-bit or 64-bit MSBuild is being used.

See Also

MSBuild