We found that the root of the problem is git.exe from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Web\External\git
which is not a real Git but some sort of a wrapper.
With it, bower tries to install correct versions, but if you look into the bower cache you can see that actual downloaded files don’t match.
Example:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Web\External>
bower install jquery#2.2.4
bower jquery#2.2.4 not-cached https://github.com/jquery/jquery-dist.git#2.2.4
bower jquery#2.2.4 resolve https://github.com/jquery/jquery-dist.git#2.2.4
bower jquery#2.2.4 checkout 2.2.4
bower jquery#2.2.4 resolved https://github.com/jquery/jquery-dist.git#2.2.4
bower jquery#2.2.4 install jquery#2.2.4
jquery#2.2.4 bower_components\jquery
Check the contents of “%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\bower\cache\packages\35300e45e44dbc6f186ed069533ef0af\2.2.4\dist\jquery.js”:
/*eslint-disable no-unused-vars*/
/*!
* jQuery JavaScript Library v3.1.0
Solution:
- Install Git for Windows
- Delete %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\bower
- Restart Visual Studio
- Delete wwwroot/lib and Restore bower packages
Update: You might also need to adjust VS external web tools settings