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Building Windows Forms

Prerequisites

Follow the prerequisites listed at Developer Guide.

Building

Building from command line (Preferred)

  • Run .\build.cmd from the repository root. This builds the Winforms.sln using the default config (Debug|Any CPU).
  • To specify a build configuration, add -configuration followed by the config such as .\build -configuration Release.

Note that this does not build using your machine-wide installed version of the dotnet sdk. It builds using the repo-local .NET SDK specified in the global.json in the repository root.

Building from Visual Studio

  1. .NET 6.0 and above branches need VisualStudio 2022 to build.
  2. Run .\restore.cmd from the repository root.
  3. Run .\start-vs.cmd from the repository root. This will prepend the repo-local .NET SDK to the path, and open Winforms.sln in Visual Studio.
  4. You should now be able to build as you normally would.

Building from Visual Studio Code

  1. (Optional) Run .\restore.cmd from the repository root.
  2. Run .\start-code.cmd from the repository root. This will prepend the repo-local .NET SDK to the path, and open Winforms.sln in Visual Studio Code.
  3. You should now be able to build and test as you normally would from command line (or VS Code, if you have set it).

Build outputs

  • All build outputs are generated under the artifacts folder.
  • Binaries are under artifacts\bin.
    • For example, System.Windows.Forms.dll can be found under artifacts\bin\System.Windows.Forms\Debug\net6.0.
  • Logs are found under artifacts\log.
  • Packages are found under artifacts\packages.

Running apps from VS

  1. Right click on the project you wish to run and select 'Set as startup project'.
  2. F5.

Running apps from command line

  1. Build the solution: .\build.cmd
  2. Navigate to the project you wish to run, e.g. to run AccessibilityTests test app: 
    winforms> pushd .\src\System.Windows.Forms\tests\AccessibilityTests
winforms\src\System.Windows.Forms\tests\AccessibilityTests> dotnet run
  3. (Alternatively) Navigate to .\artifacts\bin\AccessibilityTests\Debug\net6.0 and run the app manually.

Troubleshooting build errors

  • Most build errors are compile errors and can be dealt with accordingly.
  • Other error may be from MSBuild tasks. You need to examine the build logs to investigate.
    • The logs are generated at .\artifacts\log\Debug\Build.binlog
    • The file format is an MSBuild Binary Log. Install the MSBuild Structured Log Viewer to view them.
  • Windows Forms uses Visual Studio MSBuild but for certain features we require the latest MSBuild from .NET Core/.NET SDK. If you are on an official version of Visual Studio (i.e. not a Preview version), then you may need to enable previews for .NET Core/.NET SDKs in VS.
    • you can do this in VS under Tools->Options->Environment->Preview Features->Use previews of the .Net Core SDK (Requires restart)

Creating a package

To create the Microsoft.Private.Winforms package, run .\build -pack

Localization

If you need to add a new localization string or update an existing one, follow these steps:

  • Modify Resource\SR.resx file adding or updating necessary strings in the project that contains the said strings. (It is often faster/easier to open SR.resx in an XML editor).
  • Regenerate the localization files by rebuilding the solution/project from Visual Studio, or by executing .\build.cmd command. You can also build just the modified project by running dotnet build from the project's root.