MSBuild does not contain a value for the "VCTargetsPath" property

Question

I recently installed the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview to try it out, and now my VS 2010 projects won't open. Instead, I get the following error message:

MSBuild does not contain a value for the "VCTargetsPath" property

I found someone that had reported the issue here on Connect, and the response from Microsoft was:

Posted by Microsoft on 12/2/2011 at 5:25 PM
Hi Afshin,

Thanks for the feedback. The issue you ran into is fixed for the next public release Visual Studio.

Jim Griesmer
Visual C++ Team

Fantastic. So how do I restore VCTargetsPath so my projects will work again?

"VCTargetsPath is a toolset property that is defined in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\4.0. "

I browsed to the VCTargetPath value in the registry and it has the value:

$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\

Not sure where to go from here. Any suggestions?

Solution 1

It seems reasonable that the solution Gavin Pugh gave would fix the problem, though I didn't try it. I too ran into this problem after uninstalling the Developer Preview of VS11. I think I know what is really wrong though.

Mladen Jankovic was on the right track. One of the follow two (necessary) registry keys was missing on my machine:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\4.0
  • Key Name: VCTargetsPath
  • Type: REG_SZ
  • Value: $(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\4.0
  • Key Name: VCTargetsPath
  • Type: REG_SZ
  • Value: $(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\

(You can edit registry keys in Windows by typing +R+regedit+Enter)

For me, the second value I listed above was the one that was missing. After I added it, I was able to work with my project again.

Solution 2

Here's the thing that did trick for me:

Change registry value named DefaultToolsVersion located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\4.0 from 2.0 to 4.0. Do the same thing in Wow6432Node too.

Solution 3

The registry editing method suggested by "Mladen Jankovic" didn't work for me.

I just ran a repair on Visual Studio 2010 (run the setup.exe on the VS2010 install disc, or invoke the 'uninstall' via Control Panel->Programs). It did the trick for me.

You also should run the SP1 install again.

For what it's worth, my 'add-ins' (including Incredibuild) behaved fine after this. They didn't need to be reinstalled or repaired. My settings/window/debugger placement also was retained.

Apparently this issue only presents itself if you uninstall the Developer Preview of VS11: http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/12/15/Do-not-remove-Visual-Studio-2011-developer-preview!.aspx

Solution 4

For those who are here by google search :

If you had previously installed VS 2015 or any later versions of vs after vs2010, and then uninstalled, Here is the solution for you.

In the error message below :

Cannot evaluate the property expression "$([MSBuild]::ValueOrDefault('$(VCTargetsPath)','$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\'))"

14.0 is the version number of VS2015. Unfortunately, the VS2015/2012 uninstaller forgets one of its registry keys, which then causes that error when you go back to VS2010.

Go to start/run/ regedit >

Look for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\14.0 (12.0 as well)

And

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\14.0 (12.0 as well )

If there is a key 14.0/12.0 here, delete it and your VS2010 will hopefully work again.

Solution 5

Ugh I finally found the answer for this, which incidentally didn't give me the same error message - I get:

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

For some reason it worked fine with 32-bit builds, but not 64-bit builds.

Anyway, the solution is to copy all the VCTargetPath* keys from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSBuild ToolsVersions\14.0 to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\14.0. They were missing for me.

Actually I only copied VCTargetsPath and VCTargestPath14 because copying is quite tedious. Seems to be sufficient for VC++ 2015.

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