How to fix build error when running `react-native run-windows`?

Question

After running react-native windows in a freshly initialized React Native app, if you immediately run react-native run-windows this error happens:

Build failed with message Error: Command failed: "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\msbuild.exe" "C:/<path_to_project>/windows/<project_name>.sln" /clp:NoSummary;NoItemAndProperty;Verbosity=minimal /nologo /p:Configuration=debug /p:Platform=x86 . Check your build configuration.

Answer 1

This can happen when you have installed Visual Studio, but never started it as "devenv.exe" before trying to use some commandline tools. There is some additional setup that happens on first launch of Visual Studio before the commandline tools can be invoked by the react-native run-windows command.

See the React Native Windows troubleshooting section for more information: https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-windows/blob/0.60-stable/current/docs/SetupTroubleshooting.md