VCTargetsPath is wrong when building with MSBuild on build server

Question

In my C++ project, Test.wcxproj, I have the following configurations defined:

Answer 1

Try to set up environment variable

VisualStudioVersion=12.0

or pass it explicitly as property to msbuild on commandline

msbuild.exe <project or solution to build> /p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0

I think it is because Microsoft tries to keep compatibility with older Visual Studios.

see Visual Studio project compatibility and VisualStudioVersion

Answer 2

In my case, my build definition was configured to build my .sln file instead of my .proj file. I remember configuring it to build the MSBuild project, but somehow it seems to have reverted to the Solution.

Anyway, I found two solutions to the problem:

1. Make sure to build the .proj file (where the tools version is indeed set to 12.0).
2. Explicitly set the VCTargetsPath.