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I am using TFS 2010 and getting to grips with the automated build process. I would like to include pdb files in my builds as these are distributed along with the application (its an in-house app). I know that the build is controlled through xaml files in the BuildProcessTemplate folder but I have no idea how to edit these to include the pdb files. How do I do this?

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3 Answers 3

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You turn on pdb generation by going into the build tab of the project properties dialog, select the configuration you want to generate the symbols for and then in the lower right click 'Advanced...' and select full or pdb only in the drop down next to 'Debug Info'.


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Are you trying to distribute a debug build via TFS? If so, perhaps setting Debug as the target configuration would solve your problem. TFS defaults to a release build IIRC.

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The default build process template simply overrides the output directory of your projects (typically bin\Debug) to a Binaries directory on the build server, where all the outputs from all projects are dumped. Then it copies the contents of that directory to the location specified as the Build Drop Directory in the Build Definition.

By default your projects should generate PDB's when you compile them (when you build in VS are you seeing PDB's?). And the build process should automatically copy these PDB's to the build drop directory by default.

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