title: "Can't find the valid AspnetMergePath" on Visual Web Developer Publish?
body: <p>I am wanting to use Visual Web Developer Express 2010 to publish a website, pre-compiled to a remote server over FTP using the following settings:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Deploy only files needed to run this application</li>
  <li>Precompile this application before publishing</li>
  <li>Allow website to be updatable</li>
  <li>No databases are being deployed</li>
  <li>Site is being deployed as file hierarchy, not as .zip package</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>My first build/deploy seemed to have gone well, but after my second compilation I receive the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Transformed web.config using C:\path_to_site\Web.Debug.config into obj\Debug\TransformWebConfig\transformed\web.config.
  Copying all files to temporary location below for package/publish:
  obj\Debug\AspnetCompileMerge\Source.
  C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.5\Web\Transform\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.AspNetCompileMerge.targets(132,5): Error : Can't find the valid AspnetMergePath
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And here's a subset of the content of the Microsoft.Web.Publishing.AspNetConfigurationMerge.targets file:</p>
  
  <pre><code>  &lt;Target
        Name="GetAspNetMergePath"
        DependsOnTargets="$(GetAspNetMergePathDependsOn)"
        Condition ="'$(GetAspNetMergePath)' != 'false'"&gt;
      &lt;PropertyGroup&gt;
        &lt;AspnetMergeName&gt;aspnet_merge.exe&lt;/AspnetMergeName&gt;
        &lt;AspnetMergePath Condition="Exists('$(TargetFrameworkSDKToolsDirectory)$(AspnetMergeName)')"&gt;$(TargetFrameworkSDKToolsDirectory)&lt;/AspnetMergePath&gt;
      &lt;/PropertyGroup&gt;
      &lt;Error Condition="'$(AspnetMergePath)' == '' Or !Exists($(AspnetMergePath))"
             Text="Can't find the valid AspnetMergePath" /&gt;
    &lt;/Target&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>EDIT:  Changing the publish settings to delete all existing files before publishing does not fix the problem after all.  I'm assuming that the problem is local for now because of this.</p>
  
  <p>There does not appear to be an AspMergePath tag in my web.config.  I am not aware if I am supposed to manually add the tag.  However, the path "obj{publish setting}\AspnetCompileMerge\Source" does exist in my project.</p>
  
  <p>And in case it matters, my project name is "TestProject.NET"</p>
  
  <p>Your feedback is appreciated.</p>