Visual-studio – “C:\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props” was not found

msbuildvisual studiovisual studio 2012

I have a project created in Visual Studio, 2013.

The project file has the following properties:

ToolsVersion="12.0",
PlatformToolset = v120.

I have Visual Studio 2013 and Microsoft Build Tools 2015 installed.
This project gets successfully built using MSBuild 12.0. Upon the attempt to build it with MSBuild 14.0 I get an error 

MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

As I understand, the problem is that the variable VCTargetsPath doesn’t get evaluated. If I specify the variable VCTargetsPath before the build (with the value C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120), the problem is solved.

However, this approach is not very convenient in case the path is different. Is it possible to somehow solve the problem in a more optimal way?

The registry key and its value:

HKLM\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\12.0\VCTargetsPath $([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath)','$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120\'))

Best Answer

It took me two hours to fix this problem, but I finally finished.

The following solved my problem:

  1. Run this on an elevated command prompt (admin): npm install --global --production windows-build-tools. If you don't have npm I recommend installing it, otherwise this won't work.
  2. Change ownership in the install dir (in my case C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0) to your user, instead of admin. (properties>Security>Advanced).
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