Skip to main content

Code Analysis Invalid Settings Error When Invoked from within VSTS

This issue plagued me for several hours today so I'm posting my resolution. Executing Code Analysis from within Visual Studio Team System - Team Suite kept reporting:
"Invalid settings passed to CodeAnalysis task. See output window for details."
MSBuild is unable to locate the correct binaries to perform Code Analysis on managed binaries. Make sure that either Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition or Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite is installed with the Code Analysis feature. If MSBuild is being run from within the "Visual Studio Command Prompt", specify the path to your analysis binaries by setting the FXCOPDIR environment variable.
At first, after a search, I thought it was an Environment Variable issue regarding the path to FxCopCmd.exe. Very helpful post here. However, after adding the Environment Variable FxCopDir, I was closer but still getting an error.

Finally, I took the FxCopCmd.exe command line string into a command window and executed. It came back with:
Switch '/targetframeworkversion' is an unknown switch.
Microsoft (R) FxCop Command-Line Tool, Version 1.36 (9.0.21022.8)
Copyright (C) 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Ah ha. Now we're getting somewhere. Hypothesizing this was an old version of FxCop which didn't understand target frameworks, I downloaded the latest (which provides support for .Net 3.5 SP1) and installed it to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Team Tools\Static Analysis Tools\FxCop (making a backup copy of the directory first).

After restarting VSTS, I received a successful code analysis result. Whew...back to my demo preparation.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I already replied on the thread, but I'll reply here as well.
This is most likely caused by the VS2008 Service Pack 1 not correctly being installed. Try reinstalling it.
Monday, December 22, 2008 8:59:00 PM
Jeff Hunsaker said…
@David, Appreciate the suggestion. I'll give that a shot. Cleaner than my solution.
Monday, December 22, 2008 9:53:00 PM
Anonymous said…
The was the only way I was able to resolve this:

I added a environment variable called: CodeAnalysisPath pointing to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\CodeAnalysis
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 1:41:00 AM
whittet said…
Building in VS2010 resulted in the CA0059 error on my machine. Copying the Visual Studio 2010 FxCop folder to the VS 2008 FxCop folder resolved the issue.
Friday, June 03, 2011 2:20:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Starting a New Blog with my Cousin

On 9/15/2006, my cousin (he's really a 2nd cousin many times removed...I'm not convinced we're actually related ;-) John Ingrisano and I will launch a new blog targeted to the small business owner. He'll provide most of the content and I will provide the technical and marketing expertise. Ok, ok, starting a blog isn't rocket science but we're aiming to [eventually] derive some sort of profit from this venture, so I plan on doing this right. The two blogs I currently maintain live on the free Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com. I'll be covering the adventure here on Effective Thoughts--providing insight as to what worked and what didn't. To start off, our first activities are: Choose a name and a theme Find a host Help John learn the ins and outs of blogging Implement the site: look/feel, about/bio, 1st content, announcements, etc. Understand marketing best practices To this end, here is some research I compiled: Finding a host http://en...
6 comments
Read more

Switching the Parents to Ubuntu...?

I spent a half hour or so recently on the phone walking my Mom through a technical issue. Tentatively, I diagnosed her issue as a hard drive failure. She brought it over on her last visit and sure enough, the Dell XPS 450 from circa 1999 sounds like a bad coin-operated laundry at full capacity. I was aghast to discover she's running Windows 98. Ugh. Also, her recovery disk is just that--for recovery. I don't believe I'll be able to re-install Win98 on a new hard drive. That, coupled with the end of Microsoft (and Dell) support for Win98, got me thinking about Linux. (and she's not intense about her computing needs...and she doesn't want to spend much money...) I've been reading good things about switching one's parents to Ubuntu. Any thoughts out there?
4 comments
Read more