I'm trying to automate our main project build (C++) via Team Build system (TFS 2013). However, I see that a couple of projects are always built, even if no code change has occurred, while this does not happen using VS2013 on my development machine. This would cause some headache since binaries would always be generated and sent to test team even if not really modified.
Enabling "diagnostic" verbosity in build output, I see that the two project exhibit different behavior.
In the first project the log says that all .cpp files are rebuilt because the .PCH file has been modified (although no change happened). I could try disabling the PCH but would really avoid it if possible. Besides, not going to the root cause of the error would leave an open door to the error representing again and again.
In the second project, we have a pre build step that generates a .h file. However, prebuild steps should not run if no change in the code has been detected (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/42x5kfw4.aspx), so happens indeed on my development machine. On the build machine, instead, the prebuild step is executed, the .h is generated and this forces a complete rebuild.
In the team build settings I have "Clean workspace=false", "Clean build=false". I also tried "/p:IncrementalBuild=True" in MSBuild settings, but this did not fix the issue.
Note - I already looked at Visual Studio Rebuilds unmodified projects and VS2010 always rebuilds solution? before posting.
