Using msbuild to execute a File System Publish Profile

Question

I have a c# .Net 4.0 project created with VS2010 and now being accessed with VS2012.

I\'m trying to publish only the needed files from this website to a destination

Answer 1

Still had trouble after trying all of the answers above (I use Visual Studio 2013). Nothing was copied to the publish folder.

The catch was that if I run MSBuild with an individual project instead of a solution, I have to put an additional parameter that specifies Visual Studio version:

/p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0

12.0 is for VS2013, replace with the version you use. Once I added this parameter, it just worked.

The complete command line looks like this:

MSBuild C:\PathToMyProject\MyProject.csproj /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=MyPublishProfile /p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0

I've found it here:

http://www.asp.net/mvc/overview/deployment/visual-studio-web-deployment/command-line-deployment

They state:

If you specify an individual project instead of a solution, you have to add a parameter that specifies the Visual Studio version.