TFS 2010 Build Definition - Copy dependencies to Build target folder

Question

I have a solution with many projects. Some of these projects have references to various 3rd party dependencies. These dependencies are in source control ($\ProjectName\BranchName\Dependencies). Building the solution works fine from Visual Studio.

When I create a build definition to build the solution, it fails when it tries to build the projects with the 3rd party dependencies. From the error messages I get (Could not locate the assembly) I'd guess this is because it doesn't copy the 3rd party DLL's into the target folder.

How do I get it to copy these dependencies from the location in source control into wherever TFS's build agent compiles my projects?

Answer 1

After digging around a bit more, in the build definition there is a Workspace section where you can specify what source you want put where.

All I had to do was specify that my Dependencies were to be output to $(BuildDir)\Binaries and my problems were solved.