title: MSBuild: error MSB4057: The target does not exist in the project
body: <p>We are migrating our compilation system to <code>msbuild</code>, and we've found that some projects report the following error:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>c:\src\libs\a_lib\A\A.vcxproj : error MSB4057: The target &quot;C&quot; does not exist in the project.</p>
  <p>c:\src\libs\a_lib\B\B.vcxproj : error MSB4057: The target &quot;C&quot; does not exist in the project.</p>
  <p>c:\src\libs\a_lib\C\C.vcxproj : error MSB4057: The target &quot;C&quot; does not exist in the project.</p>
  <p>c:\src\libs\a_lib\D\D.vcxproj : error MSB4057: The target &quot;C&quot; does not exist in the project.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>The compilation line is</p>
  <pre><code>msbuild &quot;c:\src\libs\a_lib\a_lib.sln&quot; /nologo &quot;/target:C&quot; /t:build &quot;/p:Configuration=Release&quot; &quot;/p:Platform=Win32&quot;
  </code></pre>
  <p>As can be seen, the solution has several projects. The project itself exists in the solution and can be compiled from within the VS IDE. Also, other targets do not fail (following the example: A, B, D).</p>
  <p>Our previous compilation line worked correctly on the same project:</p>
  <pre><code>devenv &quot;c:\src\libs\a_lib\a_lib.sln&quot; /project &quot;C&quot; /build /nologo &quot;Release|Win32&quot;
  </code></pre>