Can MS Deploy do a package and transform, but not deploy

msbuildmsdeployweb.config

Using msbuild in .NET 4.0, I can build web project with the "Package" target, and it does a nice job of putting the package in a zip file. But, when I look at the web.config in there, it's not transformed, it has "$(ReplacableToken_Web_SiteConnection-Web.config Connection String_0)"

I can run the "TransformWebConfig" target and it will do the proper transform, but just in its own silo.

I can also run the "Build" target and pass the "DeployOnBuild=True;DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish" properties and it will deploy the package on my server with the proper web.config transform done.

But, if I want to manually deploy the package to the server, how do I do a "Package" with a "TransformWebConfig" so that the zip file has the final web.config in there?

Best Answer

If you want to skip this from happening then you need to set a property in your build. You can do this in two ways

  1. Edit your project file
  2. Create a .wpp.targets file

I would recommend #2. For this case create a new file in the same directory as your project file with the name {ProjectName}.wpp.targets where {ProjectName} is the name of your project. Then inside of this file you should place the following contents.

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"
         ToolsVersion="4.0">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>false</AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

In this case you are setting the property AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings which tells the Web Publishing Pipeline to not insert those {} placeholders in the web.config for the connection strings.

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