Publish Wizard / MSBuild - won't publish issue.

Question

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the "Publish Wizard" does not appear is Visual Studio for my VSTO Shared Add-in extensibility project.  Even when I try to run MSBuild manually, I get an "unpublishable project" message that I have had tremendous difficulty trying to gather further details on.

I would greatly appreciate if you could suggest potential reasons for why this is happening and perhaps a means throug which I can enable the publish wizard.

Denis

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Environment:

Version 8.0.50727.42  (RTM.050727-4200)

Microsoft .NET Framework

Version 2.0.50727

Installed Edition: Enterprise

 

Microsoft Visual Basic 2005   77617-168-7076001-41607

Microsoft Visual Basic 2005

 

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office   77617-168-7076001-41607

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System

 

Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Developers   77617-168-7076001-41607

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers

 

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition   77617-168-7076001-41607

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

 

Office 2003

 

Steps to follow to reproduce issue:

1.       Follow steps outlined in this article up to debugging for Excel to create a simple shared add-in “Migrating a Shared Add-in to a Visual Studio Tools for Office Add-In “: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa663367.aspx

2.       Attempt to follow steps outlined in “Deploying Application-Level Add-ins”: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms269007(VS.80).aspx

a.       The publish wizard as suggested is not available from the build menu in the main VS toolbar, nor is it available via the context menu on the solution shortcut.

b.       Attempting to use the “Using MSBuild at a command prompt” also doesn’t work, neither does the more information reference “Building ClickOnce Applications from the Command Line” at the following link http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165431(VS.80).aspx.  Attempting to use MSBuild to publish the add-in results in the error noted in the MSBuild.txt file attached to this email.

c.       If I create a new basic Windows Application project, the publish wizard options show up fine, so I’m doubting it is related to my installation of Visual Studio.  I am wondering if perhaps the MSDN document may be incorrect as perhaps the Deployment environment doesn’t’ support assemblies (which I believe the shared add-in is based off of)

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MSBuild Error: 

>msbuild.exe /target:Publish /property:PublishUrl="\test\" PriceTools.sln

Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 2.0.50727.42
[Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.42]
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2005. All rights reserved.

Build started 12/12/2006 1:58:41 PM.
__________________________________________________
Project "C:\Documents and Settings\denis\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005
\Projects\PriceTools\PriceTools.sln" (Publish target(s)):

Target ValidateSolutionConfiguration:
    Building solution configuration "Debug|Any CPU".
Target Publish:
    Target PriceTools:Publish:
        __________________________________________________
        Project "C:\Documents and Settings\denis\My Documents\Visual Stu
dio 2005\Projects\PriceTools\PriceTools.sln" is building "C:\Documents and Setti
ngs\denis\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\PriceTools\PriceTools
\PriceTools.vbproj" (Publish target(s)):

        Target _DeploymentUnpublishable:
            Skipping unpublishable project.
    Target PriceToolsSetup:Publish:
        C:\Documents and Settings\denis\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\
Projects\PriceTools\PriceTools.sln : warning MSB4078: The project file "PriceToo
lsSetup\PriceToolsSetup.vdproj" is not supported by MSBuild and cannot be built.

    Done building target "PriceToolsSetup:Publish" in project "PriceTools.sln".
Done building target "Publish" in project "PriceTools.sln".

Done building project "PriceTools.sln".

Build succeeded.

Answer 1

Realized I hadn't updated and closed this thread.

What I discovered is that "Shared-addins" are not publishable and are distinct and different from document and application level VSTO addins, which are deployable.

When I rebuilt my application as an application level VSTO addin, the publish option was available.