How to debug a project file in MSBuild 12.0 / VS2013?

Question

Tracing a project was easy in MSBuild 4.0 / VS2010, all you had to do was set registry key which enabled an msbuild /debug command line option. The debugger would launch an

Answer 1

Add the DebuggerEnabled registry value (with data true) to the following key(s) (the key in the blog post is out of date).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild\12.0 (64-bit systems) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\12.0 (32-bit systems, or if somehow running MSBuild 64-bit)

See also:

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/27450702/704808
• https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/1029251/cannot-debug-msbuild-project-script-file#commentContainer