The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Windows Azure Tools\2.3\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.targets" was not found.

Visual Studio 2013 ultimate began reporting this error while F5-ing the application; surprisingly the application compiles just fine! It just would not debug which I was able to do a day before!

The imported project “C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Windows Azure Tools\2.3\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.targets” was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

I searched online but could not find helpful information. I made couple of attempts to fix the issue (reinstalled the Azure Tools for VS 2013) but no use! It kept giving me this error. From the error description it is obvious that the VS is unable to find the Microsoft.WindowsAzure.targets file.

After a while I realized that I had installed Red Gate’s .NET Daemon and this error could be related to that. Saw the following setting on the .NET Daemon menu – unchecking it allowed me to F5 the application without running into that error!

At least now I knew which software was causing the issue. Unchecking the setting in the daemon isn’t the solution; I had to address the root cause which is the missing Microsoft.WindowsAzure.targets file.

On my development machines this file existed under the folders for Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio 2.2 (C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Windows Azure Tools\2.2) and 2.3 (C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Windows Azure Tools\2.3).

The .NET Daemon was looking for this file under C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Windows Azure Tools\2.3 folder! All I did to resolve the issue was to mimic the folder structure for v12.0 under v10.0.

Questions for the Red Gate team in case they read this post. I may be wrong but this appears to be an issue or perhaps I didn’t install the Daemon correctly. What is the elegant solution that would NOT require me to copy the folders? Perhaps the Daemon should just look at the project it is dealing with to figure out what version of the Azure Tools it is using and look for the .targets file in the respective folder under correct Visual Studio sub-folder (v10.0, v12.0, etc.)?

Edited:

I received the following response from the Red Gate support. Hope it helps.

Hi, sorry you had a problem with Demon.

Msbuild paths have changed in Visual Studio 2013 and this may cause some problems for .NET Demon if you have files that still point to older versions of VS or to the old msbuild path. This error happens when a .nuget package restore file points to the wrong MSBuild tools path. In this case, removing your restore files (particularly Nuget.config and Nuget.targets) from your solution and file system, and then re-enabling package restore should resolve it. Similar errors can occur if you have either the PlatformToolset or VisualStudioVersion properties set to an older version, but changing their values to “v12.0” should help.