In my early Linux days things were easy: I just could install the newest gcc-compiler and everything was fine. In contrast, Visual Studio confuses me a bit with it's various download options, whereas all I want is the newest C++ compiler in order to apply C++11 and C++14 features -- and that preferably without having to download gigabites of data. Can somebody help me with this issue?
Currently I use the free version of VS 2013 with the November 2013 CTP compiler.
How new does the compiler get when staying in VS 2013 (until the official VS 2015 comes out)?
Are there some "good practices" for switching to VS 2015 CTP? Is there also a free version (I only recognized the Ultimate version so far)? When I install this VS 2015 CTP, do I have to download the whole official stuff again once it is released, or can I update?
The VS 2015 CTP is under a preview license, so there's currently only the single edition out. When it is released, all the various editions for it will be created.
You should look into the new Community edition (currently VS 2013 Community) which is more full-featured than VS 2013 Express for Windows Desktop.
Related
I am currently using Visual Studio 2015 for programming ASP.NET Core applications. I have the following questions regarding installing Visual Studio 2017:
What is considered to be best practice and/or cleanest method?
Should I install Visual Studio 2017 beside Visual Studio 2015?
Should I first uninstall Visual Studio 2015 and all .NET Core dependencies and then install Visual Studio 2017?
Are there any tools that would ensure a clean uninstall of Visual Studio 2015?
From page Visual Studio 2017 Platform Targeting and Compatibility
Compatibility with Previous Releases Installation
You can install and use Visual Studio 2017 alongside previous versions of Visual Studio, including Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio 2013, and Visua Studio 2012.
So yes. you can install them without any problem.
VS 2013, VS 2015, and VS 2017 all work well side-by-side. VS 2012 can be a little dodgy on Windows 10, but should also work side-by-side. In theory VS 2010 should also work side-by-side with those, but I've run into quirks in the past with them interfering with one-another.
Projects should round-trip between 2015 and 2017 generally, although there are some one-way upgrade scenarios.
Note that if you really just need the older compiler toolset for some reason, you can also install VS 2017 and select the optional component Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.140 which installs the older v140 compiler which you can still use with the VS 2017 IDE. That said, there's not a lot of reason to do this since the VS 2015 & VS 2017 C++ standard libraries are binary compatible so you can mix them in a project.
See this blog post for information on VS 2017.
It sounds like you have done some projects in 2015 already, so you will probably want to keep it.
Once you open a project in a new version, it will try to upgrade the project and then you can't go back.
However, if you have multiple versions installed at the same time, when you try to open a project, say, from Windows Explorer, it will open it with the "Visual Studio Version Checker" and will look at the project file and determine which version to open it in.
Bottom line, if you have the hard drive space, there is no reason to not install them alongside each other.
In the past, it was recommended to install them in sequential order if you are installing multiple versions, but it doesn't sound like this is an issue for you and I don't know if that is even a problem anymore as it has been several versions since I have had to deal with that.
Good luck!
Personally, I would keep both - there have been multiple times through the years where you have compatibility issues and NEED to have the prior version(s). I've also had old project that will not upgrade and I've gone back and reinstalled old VS versions.
If you have no reason to keep VS2015 in your computer I would suggest uninstalling it.
I uninstalled VS2015 after installing VS2017 and later noticing that I was still using an old taskbar shortcut to VS2015.
So I was inadvertently still using VS2015.
Maybe some special cases require keeping older versions of VS along side the new version, but for the rest of us, I say, uninstall!
VS 2015 is the last version that is supported by Installshield LE.
If you have a need for building installers in the future, it will be useful to have VS 2015
1,2,3. Visual Studio 2017 has more features over 2015 and it contains 2015's current features so you don't need 2015 alongside 2017. Just stick with 2017. And I don't think you will have any problems while opening 2013 and 2015 projects with Visual Studio 2017.
Uninstall Tool is a good tool to use. It cleanses all the leftover files and registry entries after running the original uninstallation wizard and even tells you how many files will be cleaned after the required reboot.
For people continuing to read this, I have Visual Studio Professional 2008 (For Windows Embedded 6.5), 2010, 2015, 2017 and they all work even if open at the same time.
Edit: As stated in other answers, they need to be installed from oldest version to newest.
I have Visual Studio installed on my machine, the 2012, 2013 and 2015 versions to be precise. 2012 and 2013 are the 'professional' versions whilst 2015 is, for the time being the 'community' version.
Soon after I installed the 2015 version, the 2013 version's default platform toolset has switched to v140, to which VS has so elected to tell me isn't installed on my machine.
I am going to assume that it should've been installed with the 2015 version of Visual Studio? Should it have come with the instalation? Or is it because I'm using a Community Version this time the reason why it isn't installed?
Also, I have a lot of projects using older platform toolsets that cannot be built using this non-existant toolset. Nothing a reversion to an older toolset can fix, mind you, but should I go about acquiring the v140 platform toolset? And if so, how is this done?
I cam across this question here on SE:
Can Visual Studio 2012 be installed side-by-side w/ Visual Studio 2010?
According to one comment with a good amount of upvotes, having 2010 and 2012 installed at the same time can present issues. I then came across this MSDN page about 2013:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh266747.aspx
If you use Visual Studio 2013 together with Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio 2010 SP1, you can [blah blah]
That suggests that 2013 can be safely installed along with VS2012. Can anyone confirm?
Take a look at Brian Harry´s Blog post announcing Visual Studio 2013.
VS 2013 can be installed side by side with previous versions of Visual Studio or, if you have a VS 2013 pre-release, it can be installed straight over top of the pre-release. TFS 2013 cannot be installed side by side but can also be installed over top of either a previous version (TFS 2012 or TFS 2010) or a pre-release.
Looks like you can, yes.
You can install this version of Visual Studio on a computer that
already has an earlier version installed.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms246609%28v=vs.120%29.aspx
Only issue I can see is during uninstallation, where the file associations may get lost.
I was having two installation on my computer. Really no problems.
From personal experience, I've come across multiple issues with using Visual Studio 2012 and prior, while a VS2013 installation exists on a machine.
Some of the issues include built executables failing to launch (double clicking .exe does nothing, but debugging them in VS launches them), and inability to compile solutions that mix C# and C++ projects.
I would avoid 2013 until these issues are resolved, as just having it installed on a machine breaks older code, even if you don't use VS2013.
There are some minor (compatibility) issues between using both VS2010 and VS2012 on the same Solution, but simply having VS2012 installed on your machine won't effect anything in VS2010.
There may be compatibility issues with 2013 Community edition. I had VS 2012 Ultimate and VS 2013 Express installed and working without any issue, but as soon as I installed VS 2013 Community, my VS 2012 Ultimate install has been behaving unusually. When I first open VS 2012 U, there is a really long load time. When I perform some action (open a file, select a menu option, anything actually) I have to minimize and maximize VS 2012 U for the screen to refresh. I am still trying to figure it out myself - so if anyone has a solution, please share.
I'm helping someone with a new Windows 7 workstation that has two nVidia GPUs and see that MS Visual Studio is required for the complete Cuda 5.5 Toolkit to install properly.
Silly question: is Visual Studio not a free download? Also: there are many different versions of Visual Studio 2012, which should be installed?
Thanks in advance for your comments and suggestions.
Dan
Visual Studio comes in free and non-free versions.
According to the CUDA 5.5 release notes, you need either the full version of Visual Studio 2012 or the free version, which is called Visual Studio Express, and has some limitations compared to the full (paid) version.
You want the version of Visual Studio which is for Desktop use (which includes the C++ environment).
"Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop"
The ICU 4.6 has versions for download for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, but not for Visual Studio 2008. I'm using 2008 Express because it seems to be a little more free than the 2010 version and because there is a free download of MSDN that works with 2008 but not so for 2010 (please correct me if I'm wrong).
The previous release of ICU was 4.4 but that only provides a download for "Visual Studio 9". Now I can't find info on this Visual Studio 9 on either Microsoft's site or Wikipedia. Could it perhaps be that 9 is the version of the C/C++ compiler in Visual Studio 2008 or is it some even older version?
First, there is a VS2010 express: http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-Visual-CPP
VS9 probably means 2008, check the ICU readme to be sure.
In any event, if you use cygwin you can build ICU from an older MSVC version.
I'd really recommend the latest ICU.