The document discusses the Visual Studio command line tool devenv. Devenv allows you to open and perform tasks on solutions and projects from the command line. The first argument passed to devenv is usually a solution or project file. Devenv has various switches to perform tasks like building, cleaning, debugging and deploying without opening the Visual Studio IDE. It also describes application based options to perform tasks like building, deploying or upgrading using command line switches without displaying the IDE.

1. Visual Wednesday 13 July 2011
Studio
Command devenv
Line Tool
Muthu Swamy S

2. Visual Studio Command Line Tool
Visual Studio Command Line
Usage:
devenv [solutionfile | projectfile | anyfile.ext] [switches]
The first argument for devenv is usually a solution file or project file.
You can also use any other file as the first argument if you want to have the file open automatically in an
editor. When you enter a project file, the IDE looks for an .sln file with the same base name as the
project file in the parent directory for the project file. If no such .sln file exists, then the IDE looks for a
single .sln file that references the project. If no such single .sln file exists, then the IDE creates an
unsaved solution with a default .sln file name that has the same base name as the project file.
1. Build 12.Rebuild
2. Clean 13.ResetAddin
3. Command 14.InstallVSTemplates
4. DebugExe 15.ResetSettings
5. Deploy 16.ResetSkipPkgs
6. Edit 17.Run
7. LCID 18.Runexit
8. Log 19.SafeMode
9. Out 20.Setup
10.Project 21.Upgrade
11.ProjectConfig 22.UseEnv
NOTES
1. For build-related tasks, it is now recommended that you use MSBuild instead of devenv.
For more information, see MSBuild Command Line Reference
2. You must run devenv as an adminstrator in order to use the /Setup (devenv.exe) and
/InstallVSTemplates (devenv.exe) switches. For more information, see User Permissions
and Visual Studio
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3. Visual Studio Command Line Tool
Available command line switches:
Command line Description
/Command Starts the IDE and executes the specified command.
/DebugExe Loads a Visual C++ executable under the control of the debugger. This switch
is not available for Visual Basic or Visual C# executables.
/LCID Sets the default language for the IDE. If the specified language is not included
in your installation of Visual Studio, this setting will be ignored.
/Log Starts Visual Studio and logs all activity to the log file.
/Run or /r Compiles and runs the specified solution.
/Runexit Compiles and runs the specified solution, minimizes the IDE when the
solution is run, and closes the IDE after the solution has finished running.
/UseEnv Causes the IDE to use PATH, INCLUDE, and LIB environment variables for
Visual C++ compilation instead of the settings specified in the VC++
Directories section of Projects options in the Options dialog box.
/Edit Opens the specified files in a running instance of this application. If there are
no running instances, it will start a new instance with a simplified window
layout.
/ResetAddin Starts an instance of the Visual Studio IDE without loading the specified Add-
in.
/SafeMode Starts Visual Studio in safe mode, and loads only the default environment and
services, and shipped versions of third-party packages.
/ResetSkipPkgs Clears all SkipLoading tags that have been added to VSPackages by users who
want to avoid loading problem VSPackages.
/Setup Forces Visual Studio to merge resource metadata that describes menus,
toolbars, and command groups, from all VSPackages available.
/NoVSIP Disables the VSIP developer's license key for VSIP testing.
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4. Visual Studio Command Line Tool
Application Based Options
Use the following command line switches to perform the described task. These command-line
switches do not display the IDE.
Command line Description Example
/? Displays help for devenv switches in the Command Devenv /?
Prompt window.
/Build Builds the specified solution or project according to Devenv
the configuration of the specified solution. myproj.csproj
/build
/Clean Deletes any files created by the build command, Devenv
without affecting source files. myproj.csproj
/clean
/Deploy Builds the solution, along with files necessary for Devenv
deployment, according to the solutions myproj.csproj
configuration. /deploy
/InstallVSTemplat Registers project or item templates that are located Devenv
es in /InstallVSTemplat
<VisualStudioInstallDir>Common7IDEProjectTemp es
lates or
<VisualStudioInstallDir>Common7IDEItemTemplat
es so that they can be accessed through the New
Project and Add New Item dialog boxes.
/Out Lets you specify a file to receive errors when you Devenv
build. myproj.csproj
/build /out log.txt
/Project The project to build, clean, or deploy. You can use Devenv
this switch only if you have also supplied the /build, myproj.csproj
/rebuild, /clean, or /deploy switch. /ProjectConfig
Debug
/ProjectConfig Specifies the project configuration to build or deploy. devenv
You can use this switch only if you have also supplied MySolution.sln
the /project switch. /build Debug
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5. Visual Studio Command Line Tool
/project
MyProject.csproj
/projectconfig
Debug
/Rebuild Cleans and then builds the specified solution or devenv
project according to the configuration of the MySolution.sln
specified solution. /Rebuild Debug
/project
MyProject.csproj
/projectconfig
Debug
/Upgrade Upgrades the specified solution file and all its project devenv
files, or the specified project file, to the current MyProject.sln
Visual Studio formats for these files. /upgrade
/ResetSettings Restores Visual Studio default settings. Optionally Devenv.exe
resets the settings to the specified .vssettings file. /ResetSettings
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