Category: Visual Studio

.NET Framework vs .NET Core vs .NET Standard ?!?

I think get a grip on the latest trends only to learn that I’m still steps behind.  Thanks to Immo Landwerth for this clear article and cool tricks.  It’s ten months old but new to me.  😑

.NET Standard – Demystifying .NET Core and .NET Standard

“NET Standard is a specification. Each .NET Standard version defines the set of APIs that all .NET implementations must provide to conform to that version. You can think of it as yet-another .NET stack, except that you can’t build apps for it, only libraries. It’s the .NET implementation you should use for libraries that you want to reference from everywhere.”

Descriptions of .NET
Implementations
OS
Open Source
Purpose
.NET Framework
Windows
No
Used for building Windows desktop
applications
and ASP.NET Web apps running on IIS.
.NET Core
Windows, Linux, macOS
Yes
Used for building cross-platform console
apps
and ASP.NET Core Web apps and cloud
services.
Xamarin
iOS, Android, macOS
Yes
Used for building mobile applications for
iOS
and Android, as well as desktop apps for
macOS.
.NET Standard
N/A
Yes
Used for building libraries that can be
referenced
from all .NET implementations, such as
.NET Framework, .NET Core and Xamarin.

Visual Studio Version History With Toolset Paths

Product name Codename Version Number Supported .NET Frameworks Supported .NET / CORE Versions Release date
Visual Studio 97 Boston 5 N/A N/A Feb-97
Visual Studio 6.0 Aspen 6 N/A N/A Jun-98
Visual Studio 2002 Rainier 7 1 N/A 13-Feb-02
Visual Studio 2003 Everett 7.1 1.1 N/A 24-Apr-03
Visual Studio 2005 Whidbey 8 2.0, 3.0 N/A 7-Nov-05
Visual Studio 2008 Orcas 9 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 N/A 19-Nov-07
Visual Studio 2010 Dev10, Rosario 10 2.0 – 4.0 N/A 12-Apr-10
Visual Studio 2012 Dev11 11 2.0 – 4.5.2 N/A 12-Sep-12
Visual Studio 2013 Dev12 12 2.0 – 4.5.2 N/A 17-Oct-13
Visual Studio 2015 Dev14 14 2.0 – 4.6 1 20-Jul-15
Visual Studio 2017 Dev15 15 3.5 – 4.7 1.0-1.1, 2.0 7-Mar-17
Visual Studio 2019 Unknown 16 TBA TBA TBA

Product name .NET Toolset Path
Visual Studio 2005   Windows installation pathMicrosoft.NetFrameworkv2.0.50727
Visual Studio 2008 .NET 3.5 Windows installation pathMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv3.5
Visual Studio 2010 .NET 4.0 Windows installation pathMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv4.0.30319
Visual Studio 2012 .NET 4.5 Windows installation pathMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv4.0.30319
Visual Studio 2013 .NET 4.5.1 %ProgramFiles%MSBuild12.0bin
Visual Studio 2015 14 %ProgramFiles%MSBuild14.0bin
Visual Studio 2017 15 %ProgramFiles%MSBuild15.0bin
Visual Studio 2019 TBA TBA

Run Visual Studio Command Tools Within Powershell

Visual Studio command tools (ie, msbuild, mstest, dotnet) can be directly executed from Powershell and open in a new window.

Likewise, the reverse can also occur.  You can run Powershell from within the Visual Studio tools.
  1. Depending on your version of Visual Studio, locate the path to the common tools.  For example, if you decided to set an environment variable for this path, it could be something like:
    1. VS150COMNTOOLS=C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Visual Studio2017CommunityCommon7Tools
    2. VS140COMNTOOLS=C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0Common7Tools
    3. VS120COMNTOOLS=C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0Common7Tools
    4. VS110COMNTOOLS=C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0Common7Tools
  2. At this point,  you can open the tool by opening Run –> cmd.exe /k “”%VS150COMNTOOLS%VsDevCmd.bat” & powershell”
  3. At this point, a Powershell prompt will open so that you can directly run msbuild, mstest, etc.

.NET: Customize Builds Per Environment

Two Options:
1.  Web.Config Transformations
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465326.aspx
2.  Deployment Parameters:  Useful when you have to create a package without knowing some of the values that will be needed when the package is installed.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff398068.aspx

Web.Config Transform:
1. Open Build –> Configuration Manager
2. Create new “Active solution configuration” for each version you need and then close.
3. Navigate to Solution Explorer and right-click on your web.config and select “Add Config Transform.”  This should generate the new config files you created in Configuration Manager.
4. Open the transform file for the build configuration that you want to work with.

Further Reference:
https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ASPNET-Web-Deployment-c2d409f9