TFS 2015 Visual Studio Build - Package .zip not being created

Question

I\'m trying to build my solution and package up the web app into a web deploy (.zip) package to be deployed.

I\'ve added the Visual Studio Build ste

Answer 1

Make sure the ASP.NET development workload of Visual Studio is installed.

If DeployOnBuild is having no effect, you may need to install the ASP.NET Development "workload" with the VS setup tool.

There are specific .targets files that, if they don't exist, cause these parameters to be silently ignored. Installing this adds those .targets and the parameters become active, allowing the .zip to be created.

For me (VS 2017) the relevant target file (or one of them, anyway) that was missing but is needed is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets

If it is missing, you'll need to install as above, and if it is there, then you have a different problem. ;)