Author / Simon Doy

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Posts by Simon Doy

I am an avid SharePoint enthusiast who works as an Independent SharePoint Consultant based in Leeds, United Kingdom. I am one of the organisers of the Yorkshire SharePoint User Group in the United Kingdom. I have been designing and building SharePoint solutions since 2006.
by Simon Doy

>Command Prompt from Visual Studio


>I use the stsadm commands to add/deploy/upgrade/retract solutions. I got fed up with having to start a command prompt and then change directory to within the solution and then drill down to the project directory, where the wsp solution is found.

So instead (and I don’t know why I didn’t do this ages ago) I setup an External Tool within Visual Studio which will open up the command prompt within the currently selected project.
To do the same do the following:-
  • Open up Visual Studio
  • Click Tools->External Tools
  • Click Add
  • In the Title call it something like Command Prompt (Project)
  • Command: c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
  • Initial Dir: $(ProjectDir)
  • Untick Close on Exit

If you wish to have the command prompt open within a different directory then put the path to that directory, there are all the variables which are available when using post build events such as SolutionDir.

To use select the project that you wish to open the command prompt in and then do Tools->Command Prompt (Project)

Enjoy!