Project won't build on someone elses computer.

Gavin Williams 761

I have a C++ Universal Windows project that builds and runs on my system, and also on another laptop. But when I send it to my teacher, he is getting the following error:

The BaseOutputPath/OutputPath property is not set for project .... Please make sure that you have specified a valid combination of Configuration and Platform for this project. Configuration='Release' Platform='x64' etc.

A very weird difference is that in my VS, the project is a Universal Windows project and on his system the brackets after the project say it's a Windows Store 10.0 project. I've never seen that before. Maybe it's relevant to the issue.

1 answer

Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,856 Reputation points

2021-09-23T07:25:13.76+00:00

Hello, Welcome to Micorosoft Q&A,

The BaseOutputPath/OutputPath property is not set for project .... Please make sure that you have specified a valid combination of Configuration and Platform for this project. Configuration='Release' Platform='x64' etc.

Derive from your the error info, it looks you have not specific debug configuration for your project. UWP Projects do not support AnyCPU, please make sure your configuration manager is set up correctly.

Open your project configuration manager -> check the build and deploy check options. and set the platform as x86 or x64 like the following.
. For more info please refer to Understand build configurations document.

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Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-23T07:42:37.133+00:00

I had it configured as x64 only on my system. I've removed all other configurations.

However, as part of submitting the work, we had to strip out bin/obj and anything else that would inflate the file size. Maybe I stripped out the configuration file? Can you please tell me which file(s) I need to include for transferring the correct configuration to his system?

I thought the vcxproj file would contain everything.

Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,856 Reputation points

2021-09-23T07:45:14.493+00:00

You could delete bin and obj folder for clean solution manually. but please don't remove the refered resource file.

Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,856 Reputation points

2021-09-23T07:46:47.097+00:00

Can you share your configuration screenshot?

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-23T09:18:24.857+00:00

And here is the screenshot from my teacher showing the error ...

Note: I've asked him if he's running on an 8.1 device and also to check the configuration.

Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,856 Reputation points

2021-09-23T09:31:16.47+00:00

Your configuration looks correct, You mentioned 8.1 device, what's the 8.1 device, UWP can only run in the Windows 10 device.

Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,856 Reputation points

2021-09-23T09:35:39.25+00:00

And please check if you run the it with local machine but not device.

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-23T10:22:28.307+00:00

So just to reiterate. This runs on my machine, but it doesn't run on my teachers machine. Som ebody on Discord suggested that my teacher might be using a Windows 8.1 device. Could that explain why his VS shows the project as (Windows Store 10.0) while mine shows the project as (Universal Windows)?

Nico 106 Reputation points

2021-09-24T01:26:47.93+00:00

It's hard to say, does your teacher provide OS information?

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T03:00:19.48+00:00

I can't upload a 15kb png. Here is his system info:

Windows 10 Pro
10.0.19042 Build 19042
Surface Book 2
x64-based PC
Surface_Book_1832

He said he gave it to other teachers to try and no one could build it. But it's building on my PC at home.

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T03:12:57.39+00:00

I've tried loading my project on another laptop and it won't load. At first VS said to install missing features. So I installed:

C++ (v142) Universal Windows Platform Tools

But it still won't load on the laptop even though the popup says 'You already have the frameworks, SDK's and Tools installed for the development work you selected'.

The laptop runs VS 16.8.3 while my development system runs 16.11.3. Unfortunately I can't update VS on the laptop because it only has 115gb drive. This all seems pretty fragile. First time I've ever tried to share a UWP project, I hope this isn't the general experience, yikes!

Nico 106 Reputation points

2021-09-24T05:56:20.39+00:00

which your teacher want to check the source code or the app's function? if second one, you could package your app as appx package and sideload for your teacher. For fist one you could ask your teacher to edit the app's target version and test again.

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T06:11:22.84+00:00

10.0.19041.0 // my target platform
10.0.19042 // his platform

I can't keep asking him questions and getting him to check things and change configuration. I need a real solution that fixes it on my end so that I can hand it to him in a state that builds. What is actually the problem here? Is the Visual Studio project system fragile or is it Visual Studio itself?

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T06:46:14.207+00:00

When I look on the laptop (the project that doesn't load at all) there is a problem with one of the file paths being on my development machine! Why would it be looking for a file on my development machine? Do C++ projects use absolute file paths? ROFL

Nico 106 Reputation points

2021-09-24T07:42:36.567+00:00

Yep, a part of lib used absolute path, It's hard to reproduce your problem in my side, Could you mind share repro sample that without sensitive info?

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T08:17:18.357+00:00

It's just an assignment that visualizes a binary tree, so no sensitive info. But that would be great, it is pretty hard to work out what's going on when I can't really talk to the person that's having the problem. He has said he just doesn't have time to work out the problem and has left it to me. I think that's fair enough, most people would have used raylib - while I used UWP.Xaml. Perhaps a mistake in retrospect, but it's too late now, I just want to get it working for him.

I'll share from one-drive because it's 12MB.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhbcRtciy6_0jcsLJzoSqpqLdEJx_g?e=CSFd1E

I haven't used share too much, so I set the link to view only, but I assume that once you download it you can edit it as normal. Let me know if that's wrong.

Nico 106 Reputation points

2021-09-24T11:36:25.007+00:00

I have run your code, it could build successfully in my side.

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T15:08:04.31+00:00

Ok. Thank you. That's good to know. The fact that it ran on your system means the project must be OK surely. My guess then, would be that people at the college don't have particular workloads installed in VS. I might have to contact their IT department.

I will also check the laptop workloads in VS, perhaps I'll find some difference to explain why it won't run on there - although it's a completely different error to what my teacher is getting.

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T15:40:09.987+00:00

Installing C++/WinRT onto the laptop allows the project to be loaded.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=CppWinRTTeam.cppwinrt101804264

Though it still doesn't build.

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T16:03:14.753+00:00

I installed Desktop Development with C++ via VS Installer and retargeted the solution to = Latest Installed Version. The app runs and crashes in ...

System File : delete_scalar.cpp

Exception in ucrtbased.dll

Access violation reading location 0xFFFFFFFFF...

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-24T17:17:21.643+00:00

Updating VS to 16.11.3 get's the project running on the laptop. Tomorrow I'll send instructions to my teacher as follows:

1) Update VS to 16.11.3
2) Add Desktop Development with C++ via VS Installer
3) Add C++/WinRT VSIX, get it from : https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=CppWinRTTeam.cppwinrt101804264
4) in VS Project Properties, set Target Platform to Latest Installed Version.

Nico 106 Reputation points

2021-09-27T01:30:06.337+00:00

Ok, good, please let me know the result, I will keep following up this tread.

Gavin Williams 761 Reputation points

2021-09-28T08:21:12.623+00:00

He got it working. I suspect he was missing a number of workloads. He said he had to install Universal Windows Platform workload, and complained about having to do so. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that in the initial submission, but maybe I needed to restate the importance of that too. He said it took an hour or more to finally get working, with all the downloading and he even complained about having to set his machine to Developer Mode.

It was a pretty frustrating experience for me, these are workloads that are always on my machine. It highlights a serious issue with sharing projects, that there is still no way to encapsulate system configuration requirements to run VS projects. I don't see modern Windows programming ever being adopted in education settings when it's up to the student to have to tell the teacher to install 10GB worth of workloads, and go to this website to get C++/WinRT and check this and change that setting. Teachers can't do all that.

We need a way to automatically install the correct workloads and VSIX extensions in a way similar to C# Nuget. The process of configurating a system / installing required components must be automated.

RLWA32 40,651 Reputation points

2021-09-28T08:37:55.03+00:00

I don't see modern Windows programming ever being adopted in education settings when it's up to the student to have to tell the teacher to install 10GB worth of workloads, and go to this website to get C++/WinRT and check this and change that setting. Teachers can't do all that.

Well, maybe the problem is that 1) the system used by the instructor was inadequately configured from the start by the educational institution (no fault of the student) and/or 2) no standardization was established or provided to students that problems must be solved using a particular technology. Just a thought...
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