InvalidOperationException: No instances of MSBuild could be detected.

[ebaker-sogeti]

Describe the bug

When following the Community Toolkit instructions for SQL Database Projects I consistently run into issues with MSBuild not being available.

Regression

No response

Steps to reproduce

1. Environment: Visual Studio 2022 Pro, .NET 8.0, Aspire 9.0. 
2. Create new .NET Aspire Starter App (Blazor front end, API backend service)
3. `dotnet tool install -g microsoft.sqlpackage`
4. `dotnet new -i Microsoft.Build.Sql.Templates`
5. `dotnet new sqlproj -n ProductsTutorial`
6. Solution > Add Existing > ProductsTutorial.sqlproj
7. Add .sqlproj reference to AppHost project
8. Add `CommunityToolkit.Aspire.Hosting.SqlDatabaseProjects` nuget package to AppHost
9. AppHost Program.cs code:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var sql = builder.AddSqlServer("sql")
                 .AddDatabase("test");

builder.AddSqlProject<Projects.ProductsTutorial>("mysqlproj")
       .WithReference(sql);

var apiService = builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireApp3_ApiService>("apiservice");

builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireApp3_Web>("webfrontend")
    .WithExternalHttpEndpoints()
    .WithReference(apiService)
    .WaitFor(apiService);

builder.Build().Run();


10. Start/debug project
11. Error received

When commenting out builder.AddSqlProject the app starts and works as expected. The sqlproj project also works independently if I schema compare or apply changes to the SQL Server created by Aspire. 

System.TypeInitializationException: 'The type initializer for 'Aspire.Hosting.SqlProjectBuilderExtensions' threw an exception.'
InvalidOperationException: No instances of MSBuild could be detected.
Try calling RegisterInstance or RegisterMSBuildPath to manually register one

Expected behavior

I would expect a SQL Server container to be created with a default database and a dacpac applied to the instance

Screenshots

IDE and version

VS 2022

IDE version

17.13.0

Nuget packages

AppHost:
Aspire.Hosting.AppHost (9.0.0)
CommunityToolkit.Aspire.Hosting.SqlDatabaseProjects (9.1.0)

Additional context

No response

Help us help you

Yes, but only if others can assist

[aaronpowell]

@ErikEJ @jmezach

[ErikEJ]

@ebaker-sogeti Could be your VS or .NET SDK install that is broken, to to re-install the .NET 8 SDK and repair VS.

[jmezach]

Looking at the docs for MSBuild.Locator, which is what we're using to find MSBuild so we can load the project file, there are a bunch of environment variables that it is looking for. Perhaps none of them are set in your environment, causing these errors? See https://github.com/microsoft/MSBuildLocator?tab=readme-ov-file#how-locator-searches-for-net-sdk

[ebaker-sogeti]

@ebaker-sogeti Could be your VS or .NET SDK install that is broken, to to re-install the .NET 8 SDK and repair VS.

Thanks Erik - I went through and repaired Visual Studio and also uninstalled .NET 8 components, .NET Aspire SDK, and MSBuild and I am still seeing the same thing.

@jmezach I am going to review this list in the afternoon, thank you for the suggestion.