Running Code Analysis (FxCop > 10) on build agent without installing Visual Studio

Question

After FxCop 10 Microsoft stopped shipping a separate installer for FxCop. Officially one can currently only run code analysis (FxCop 12.0 / 14.0 / 15.0) after installing Vis

Answer 1

!! For FxCop 12.0 / VS2013 see this answer !!

Run FxCop 14.0 without installing Visual Studio 2015

Prerequisites:

• MSBuild 14.0 --> Install Microsoft Build Tools 2015
• Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 x86 (the x86 version is always required, depending on the build x64 redist may be required as well. If it is missing the error message can be cryptic, for example System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.Interop.dll' or one of its dependencies. The specified module could not be found.). Instead of installing the entire redist you could also copy the necessary DLLs separately, but at this point i don't know which are needed. It's quite tricky and time consuming to find out which ones are exactly missing.

Depending on what you want to build:

• appropriate Windows SDK, for example Windows 10 SDK
• appropriate .net SDK / targets (.NET Framework 4.6 SDK is included in Windows 10 SDK)

Files to Add to Source Control

These are the files that i had to add to source control: (Please consider that this might violate some license agreements)

(source control)\tools\FxCop14
│
├[Engines]
│   │
│   ├IntrospectionAnalysisEngine.dll
│   └PhoenixAnalysisEngine.dll
├[Msbuild]
│   │
│   ├fxcoptask.dll
│   ├Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Targets
│   ├Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.dll
│   └Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.Sdk.dll
├[Repository]
│   │
│   ├[Compatibility]
│   │   │
│   │   ├Desktop2.0.xml
│   │   ├Desktop2.0SP1.xml
│   │   ├Desktop2.0SP2.xml
│   │   ├Desktop3.0.xml
│   │   ├Desktop3.0SP1.xml
│   │   ├Desktop3.0SP2.xml
│   │   ├Desktop3.5.xml
│   │   └Desktop3.5SP1.xml
│   └system32.bin
├[Rules]
│   │
│   ├DataflowRules.dll
│   ├DesignRules.dll
│   ├GlobalizationRules.dll
│   ├InteroperabilityRules.dll
│   ├MaintainabilityRules.dll
│   ├MobilityRules.dll
│   ├NamingRules.dll
│   ├PerformanceRules.dll
│   ├PortabilityRules.dll
│   ├ReliabilityRules.dll
│   ├SecurityRules.dll
│   ├SecurityTransparencyRules.dll
│   └UsageRules.dll
├[x64]
│   │
│   └msdia140.dll (1349 KB)
├[Xml]
│   │
│   ├CodeAnalysisReport.xsl
│   ├FxCopReport.xsl
│   └VSConsoleOutput.xsl
├Architecture-msil.dll
├CodeAnalysis.dll
├CustomDictionary.xml
├FxCopCmd.exe
├FxCopCmd.exe.config
├FxCopCommon.dll
├FxCopSdk.dll
├Microsoft.Cci.dll
├Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.Common.dll
├Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.DataflowModels.dll
├Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.dll
├Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.Interop.dll
├Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.Phoenix.dll
├Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.Phoenix.xml
├msdia140.dll (1057 KB)
├mssp7en.dll
├mssp7en.lex
├phx.dll
└Runtime-vccrt-win-msil.dll

Copy them as follows:

• entire FxCop installation folder contents from

  %programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Team Tools\Static Analysis Tools\FxCop

• from Visual Studio 2015 C++ redist, or any other place: (also see legal information) copy msdia140 x86 and x64 to:

  msdia140.dll (1057 KiB)

  amd64\msdia140.dll (1349 KiB)

• from the Global Assembly Cache (C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\_NameOfTheAssembly_\) of a computer where VS2015 is installed, copy the following DLLs to: (Make sure the DLLs are version 14.0 !)

  Msbuild\Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.dll

  Msbuild\Microsoft.VisualStudio.CodeAnalysis.Sdk.dll

• All files from %programfiles(x86)%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\CodeAnalysis to

  Msbuild\fxcoptask.dll

  Msbuild\Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Targets

Additionally i adjusted the project msbuild file (*.csproj) as follows (Hint: i'm slightly deviating from the way i previously did it with VS2013. It's not because FxCop 14 works differently but rather because this way i can include fxcop by a nuget package and use standard nuget functionality for .targets file import to .csproj):

And this is what our Custom.CodeAnalysis.targets contains:

    
    
        
        ..\FxCop14\ 
        en-US
        $(SolutionDir)FxCop.ruleset
        
        
        true 
        true