Why does the Visual Studio Build Tools installer return immediately without installing anything?

Question

I'm trying to follow the example for installing Visual Studio Build Tools in a container. I'm trying to figure out why the installation isn't working like I expect. I cannot even start the container that is "built" with the components I think I want; it fails to run, saying The system cannot find the path specified.. I want to start the base image and run the installer myself, so I can see what is going on. Here is what I start with:

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/sdk:4.8
ADD https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vs_buildtools.exe C:\TEMP\vs_buildtools.exe

Then I try manually running the command in the example:

C:\TEMP\vs_buildtools.exe --quiet --wait --norestart --nocache --installPath C:\BuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools

This command returns immediately without doing anything. What is going on?

Saville

Answer 1

It's a window app so control returns immediately. That's why our example instructions at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/build-tools-container?view=vs-2019 use "start /wait" (batch). Please let me know if those instructions don't work for you.

Scintillant

I'm using the same --wait option that is in the instructions. There is no other mention of "wait" on that page. What do you mean by "start /wait" (batch)? – Saville

Here's a sampling of commands I've tried while inside of a container started with docker run -it <name>: gist.github.com/thejohnfreeman/2a64c63f09847ce5ed338fb540dcfc02 One working example command that I can copy and paste might help me understand what I'm missing. – Saville

I made some progress. It seems the --quiet argument is required. Is that true? Is it trying to open a GUI otherwise? Is there no way to get logs printed to the console? – Saville

Yes, both --wait and --quiet are required, as is still using "start /wait" (batch) or "start-process -wait" (powershell). You need to wait for the EXE you call to complete, and --wait just tells the bootstrapper (what you're actually running) to wait for the setup application - both of which were designed for window operations primarily. – Scintillant

The sample docs work. That's how we create many of the containers we use for building other tools. Did you check for any error logs? – Scintillant