Why does Mage.exe not generate a compatibleFrameworks attribute?

Question

We are using Mage.exe to generate our application's manifests as part of our build process. Upon upgrading to .NET 4 we now find it generates an invalid manifest.

The reason is there isn't a compatibleFrameworks attribute being set in the application manifest which we generate every build.

Is there a way we can make Mage.exe add this element or should we only ever update existing manifests?

Answer 1

Add this to your GenerateDeploymentManifest MSBuild task

   TargetFrameworkMoniker=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"        

and that should fix it

Answer 2

There is a separate copy of mage.exe built for .NET 4.0. Try using this copy from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools (or ...\v7.1\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools depending on which SDK version you have installed).

I was actually having this same problem and using the mage.exe from NETFX 4.0 Tools fixed it for me.