Back to Basic : Displaying detailed output of MSBuild in Visual Studio output Window

Back to Basic : Displaying detailed output of MSBuild in Visual Studio output Window

I have received this question as a follow-up from one of my pervious post Back to Basic – Building Solutions in Visual Studio – Build Vs. Rebuild . There I explained the details of different types of build and how things works under the hood, and shows how you can view the detail inside output window.  Question was how we can view the detailed of build in output window as shown in some of the screenshots ? Well,  by default Visual Studio doesn’t show the detailed output of MSBuild in output windows. And to be honest you really don’t need to check them most of them.  But there are some cases, when you want to identify very specific project build related issues, or diagnose some build error, having this enabled would be extremely helpful.

To enable the detailed output of the MSBuild in output window, navigate to:

Tools –> Options –> Projects and Solutions –> Build and Run 

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Quick Tip : You can launch the same using the Quick Launch

buildquicklaunch

 

 

 

Related Post : Quick Launch in Visual Studio

 

From the right panel, you can set the verbosity of build output by selecting following option.

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Change the build output verbosity from here and you can see the changes in build output window.

Must Read : Automatically Show the Output Window During Build in Visual Studio

Here is the sample screen shots of different build output window when different build verbosity was selected.

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This is not something new features of Visual Studio..  its been there since beginning; As I have received this questions shared it over here.. and hopefully would help others.

 

Abhijit Jana

Abhijit runs the Daily .NET Tips. He started this site with a vision to have a single knowledge base of .NET tips and tricks and share post that can quickly help any developers . He is a Former Microsoft ASP.NET MVP, CodeProject MVP, Mentor, Speaker, Author, Technology Evangelist and presently working as a .NET Consultant. He blogs at http://abhijitjana.net , you can follow him @AbhijitJana . He is the author of book Kinect for Windows SDK Programming Guide.

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