Visual Studio 2019 msbuild directory "Current" instead of "15.0"

I installed the Visual Studio 2019 in my working machine and I noticed the following:

With Visual Studio 2017, the msbuild.exe path is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin

With Visual Studio 2019, the msbuild.exe path is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin

There is also a directory with version 15.0, but mine is empty

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin

What is the goal to use the "Current" folder instead of "15.0"?

Thanks.

2 Answers

MSBuild is now located inside the Visual Studio folder.

For example:

• c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Current\Bin\
• c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\Bin\
• c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\

To dynamically find Visual Studio the following can be used:

• "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe" -latest -products * -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -property installationPath

  • D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional

From @vitrilo comment, using PowerShell this worked for me:

New-Alias -Name vswhere -Value "${Env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe" vswhere -latest -products * -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -property installationPath 

Outputs:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional