Building a .net web application project

[Albert]

When you point the Make VS.NET task at a solution file if a web project is part of that solution it builds without error. However, if I point the Make VS.NET task directly at a web application's .vbproj file I get one of the two following errors. Why?

ERROR 1 (referencing the file using %PROJDIR%\dirname\filename):

8/18/2006 1:55:58 PM: --------------------Starting Build: 'Visual Build Pro Sample Build.bld'--------------------
8/18/2006 1:55:58 PM: Building project step 'Build VBPWebApp'...
Pre-processing...

Building configuration 'Release'...

Microsoft (R) Development Environment Version 7.10.3077.
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1984-2001. All rights reserved.

The project you are trying to open is a Web project. You need to open it by specifying its URL path.
Process completed with exit code 1
8/18/2006 1:56:02 PM: Step 'Build VBPWebApp' failed
8/18/2006 1:56:02 PM: Build ended.

ERROR 2 (using the URL):

8/18/2006 12:52:26 PM: Building project step 'Build VBPWebApp'...
Pre-processing...

Building configuration 'Release'...

Microsoft (R) Visual Studio Version 8.0.50727.42.
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1984-2005. All rights reserved.

The project has not been converted.
Process completed with exit code 1
8/18/2006 12:52:27 PM: Step 'Build VBPWebApp' failed
8/18/2006 12:52:28 PM: Build ended.

[kinook]

The first error occurs because VS.NET 2003 does not support building of individual web projects by their local filename.

The second error occurs because you have both VS.NET 2003 and VS 2005 installed, and when building individual web projects (via their http address), the Make VS.NET action doesn't parse the project file for the version, so it invokes the most-recently-installed version of VS (2005 in this case), and VS 2005 refuses to build the project file because it is for an older version of VS. You can work around this by specifying the full path for the VS 2003 version of devenv.com (typically C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\IDE\devenv.com) in the Override field on the Options tab of the Make VS.NET action (or create a macro with that value and reference it in that field).