Using MS Visual Studio Community 2017 on build server

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I am using MS visual studio 2017 community version for my .NET project. I downloaded and installed visual studio using the same account on my laptop and build server. The trial period expired after 1 month but I registered it using student account subscription offer. It started working successfully on my laptop but the CI pipeline which runs on build server kept giving me error that trial version has expired. After trying many possible solutions the problem persisted and in the end I had to switch to MS Visual Studio 2017 professional version which is now working smoothly on build server without any issues. What could be the reason of this behavior? Is MS Visual studio 2017 community version not meant to run on build servers ?

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Hajo Kirchhoff On

I assume you are using a (Windows) service for your CI pipeline.

All subscription based Visual Studio versions need to be started with a GUI session at least once every 30 days to verify their license. Your CI pipeline does not do that, so it stops working after 30 days.

You could either

  • manually log into the CI account and start Visual Studio
  • buy a permanent license and unlock Visual Studio with a serial key
  • buy a Visual Studio Build Tools license (I think it is called build tools, but am not sure. Lookup the license terms. There is a specific license meant to be used in a CI pipeline).