TFS Build error - “The specified path, file name, or both are too long…”

Question

I\'m writing the Custom Activities of build process template. I got the below issue when build the activity.

>XamlBuildTask : error XC1043: Extension \'Mi         


        

Answer 1

I find one tip here. Hope it might be helpful to you.

Currently there are a two workarounds:

Reduce the namespace in workflow x:Class property. This makes the generated file have a shorter name.

Use the subst or mklink command to create mapping so that the path the solution is located in becomes a lot smaller. In team build, the workspace mapping needs to be modified equally.

Answer 2

This still happens in 2015 TFS

This is the best answer I got changing build agent properties Properties to save path space

1. The build agent properties dialog defines the "Working directory” for the build agent, defaulting to “$(SystemDrive)\Builds\$(BuildAgentId)\$(BuildDefinitionPath)”. Based on the above link, I’m going to go with “$(SystemDrive)\B\$(BuildDefinitionId)” – that should take the '”uilds” off the base directory, the TFS project name (19 characters), a backslash, and the build name (7 characters) out, and replace them with just a 32-bit number (which should be at most 10 digits, but since it starts from 1, it’s much more likely to be 3-4 digits), saving me 23 characters minimum
2. I may not have been able to shorten $(SourceDir), but it’s just “$(BuildDir)\Sources”, right? I can just configure the build to pull the code to “$(BuildDir)\S” instead of “$(SourceDir)”, and I should save another 6 characters, getting me to 29 characters saved, which should be enough