How to display detailed output of MSBuild in Visual Studio output Window

In the Visual Studio IDE, as you have already been aware about the output dock window which is at the bottom that shows all the captured build events/results and logs. By default, Visual Studio does not show the build results in detail. There are some special cases where we would need to have the detailed build results to be captured on the output window to identify a deeper level of project build-related issues or diagnose some build error. In this article, I would like to explain the verbosity levels of logging the build events/results, which the Visual Studio will log in the output window. Also will see how we can enable and disable the same via the Visual Studio configuration window.

Display detailed output of MSBuild in Visual Studio output Window

The MSBuild is capable of capturing build events/results in 5 verbosity levels. This is the existing feature in all version of Visual Studio IDE.

• Quiet
• Minimal
• Normal
• Detailed
• Diagnostic

In order to enable these verbosity levels perform below steps.

• navigate to Visual Studio Menu Tools -> Options.
• In the options screen, navigate to Project & Solutions and select Build & Run.
• In the Build & Run screen shows the dropdown list to set the verbosity levels for both MSBuild project output and logs.
  
  

Here is the sample output screen that shows how MSBuild results are displayed for each verbosity levels.

Quiet

Minimal

Normal

Detailed

Diagnostics

I hope this article helped you to choose between verbosity levels based on your build requirements. Please drop your comments below if you need further details on verbosity levels.

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