TFS Build server and COM references - does this work?

Question

On my Developer PC i have registered the according dll´s and referenced them. (Add reference -> COM) On the TFS build server this of course causes errors since the reference

Answer 1

Using tlbimp.exe directly is not necessary. Try replacing any items in the project file with . An example would look like this:

   
     True
   

The COM dll doesn't need to be registered on the machine for this to work.

Each COMFileReference item can also have a WrapperTool attribute but the default seems to work fine. The EmbedInteropTypes attribute is not documented as being applicable to COMFileReference, but it seems to work as intended.

See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/visualstudio/msbuild/common-msbuild-project-items#comfilereference for a little more detail. This MSBuild item has been available since .NET 3.5.