Windows 8 SDK Platform Toolset missing in Visual Studio 2010 - visual-studio-2010

I just installed .NET framework 4.5, the Windows 8 SDK, and the Windows 8 DDK on 2 different machines (one at home managed by me, one at work originally setup by IT) both with Visual Studio 2010 Professional SP1 already installed, and both running Window 7 Professional.
I had an old C++/Win32 application in Windows XP that used both the Windows SDK and DDK. I updated it for Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010 project settings. However, it would not build because some of the SDK/DDK include and library files are new, and it couldn't find them with Platform Toolset set to "v100" in Visual Studio.
Manually adding the Include and Lib folders to the project made it build and run correctly.
Is there some way that I can add the newly installed SDK and DDK to Visual Studio 2010's "Platform Toolset" list? I thought it was supposed to do this automatically, but neither of the machines I use have it in their list after install and reboot.

After researching this quite a bit, I finally found a solution. It doesn't look like it can be added to "Platform Toolset" via any simple method, but at least you don't have to add the paths on every single project you want to use the API. This worked for me, and allowed me to build Microsoft's "USBView sample application" written for VS2012. The way Microsoft recommends (from the official Microsoft Visual C++ Team blog) is:
For a single project:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2012/03/25/10287354.aspx
This seems to work with the final SDK release as well.
To apply those settings across multiple projects:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2012/11/23/using-the-windows-8-sdk-with-visual-studio-2010-configuring-multiple-projects.aspx

Related

Visual Studio WDK integration Issue

Recently I installed Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise along with WDK 10 for 1709 My workloads contained C++ workload. . My machine is a Windows 8.1 Pro with net framework 4.6.1. After installing the WDK I expected the templates to come in the Legacy section of Visual C++ but no legacy option is present in it. I don't understand what is the problem. Please help me.
Thanks in advance
I resolved the issue. It was due to a missing windows 10 SDK. Reinstallating the WDK with appropriate SDK solved the problem
Developing drivers to windows is quite interesting one will be exposed to advanced Operating System Concepts. The set up for the environment will be IDE
IDE - Visual Studio (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=Community&rel=16)
Compilers (WDK)
Debugger (WDK)
WDK contains both(https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2085767). Latest Visual Studio(VS2019) will come along with the latest WDK(10, 1903 as of now).
Sometimes plugins might not work properly i.e integration issues between Visual Studio and WDk.
By going to the location "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Vsix\VS2019" and run VSIX installer.
Now in a new project, driver related templates are available.

Does MSbuild require Visual Studio to be installed on the build server?

Can we use MSBuild without Visual Studio 2012?
Currently, we have a build server where we are compiling and creating deployment copy of one of our projects, it has Visual Studio Professional Edition installed. We are setting up a new build server now. Do we really need Visual Studio 2012 on the new build server?
If yes, then how? I googled it but I couldn't find an answer.
We have spent a lot of time trying to get our Build Servers to work without Visual Studio.
We do not use TFS for builds and therefore I am not sure the license exemption above applies to us. Also not having Visual Studio installed helps you really understand how your software is building and get references correct.
We have seen many examples of solutions with projects that contains references for the same piece of software with some in nuget packages shipped with the solution and others that are pointing to locations in the "program files" path which are not present on machines without Visual Studio installed. Once you attempt to build software without VS installed you can really see how "self-contained" your applications are.
Before I start listing the things you typically need to install, let me just point out that MS Build is now no longer considered part of the .NET framework but is shipped with Visual Studio but can also be installed separately. See this blog post for more: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2013/07/24/msbuild-is-now-part-of-visual-studio.aspx
The following software needs to be installed for most builds, there may be others for example if you are creating portable class libraries.
Microsoft Build Tools 2013
Web Deploy 3.5 (for packaging applications)
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.1 Developer Pack
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 Developer Pack
Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 8 (You can use the SDK to build applications that target these operating systems: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008)
The following directories need to be copied:
Reference Assemblies (need to be copied from a machine running Visual Studio from/to directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies)
Public Assemblies (need to be copied from a machine running Visual Studio from/to directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies
We also use Wix and therefore we install the following:
WIX Toolset 3.8
I have a similar set for testing however that was not part of the question so I will leave that off!
Hope this helps someone.
Update: 3rd March 2017
Microsoft recently responded to a long standing user voice request "Support .NET Builds without requiring Visual Studio on the server" for the requirement for Visual Studio to be installed on a build server to be removed.
From the description on the download page "These Build Tools allow you to build native and managed MSBuild-based applications without requiring the Visual Studio IDE." Not tested yet but after RTM I will look at this and provide a further update here.
There is a blog post that promises these build tools install all pre-requisites and can be used to build MS Build based applications.
No, you don't need Visual Studio on your build box. If I recall correctly, msbuild is installed as part of the .NET framework - it certainly used to be.
Depending on what you're building, you may find that there are some things which are easier to get working if you do install Visual Studio though - things like portable class library profiles. While there are usually non-VS installers available, I've found it simpler to install an Express edition of Visual Studio just to get the bundled build targets.
Remember: The easiest way to build your visual studio solutions is to install Visual Studio on the build server. Even Visual Studio Express is often enough.
That said, you can make it work without it. But it it sometimes a lot of work to figure out. You'll need to install the right Windows / .NET Platform SDK. You can install multiple of these SDKs side by side. Now, when you depend, for example, on ASP.NET MVC 5 or Entity Framework 6, you might need to install further SDKs to get your application to compile. The downloads for these all assume that you also have Visual Studio installed, but many of their payloads can also be installed separately. It can become quite a hassle.
Personally I've grown tired of trying to figure out which parts of which installers enable what. But that is also driven by the fact that Microsoft allows you to install Visual Studio on a build server (TFS) with the same license as your development machine as long as you are an MSDN subscriber. Check the Visual Studio License Whitepaper for more details.
Using Visual Studio on the Build Server
If you have one or more licensed users of Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN, Visual Studio Premium with MSDN, or Visual
Studio Professional with MSDN, then you may also install the Visual Studio software as part of Team Foundation Server
2013 Build Services. This way, you do not need to purchase a Visual Studio license to cover the running of Visual Studio on
the build server for each person whose actions initiate a build.
If you, like me, would prefer this to change in the future, I suggest you make sure you're heard by submitting your request or voting for an existing one over at the Visual Studio User Voice.
Here's just a quick take on this.
Your build machine should decouple development tools as much as is possible. With that said, and as already stated by others here, MSBuild can be run independently of Visual Studio, and it should!
If your build requires Visual Studio to run then there is a very good chance that you have a solution or project architecture problem that ought to be resolved.
Visual Studio doesn't need to be installed. MSBuild is part of the .net SDK.
Other .net dependencies will need to be installed though, if you are using them. MSTest, or anything that is part of Team foundation will require Visual Studio installed.
I believe you only need MSBuild ( that is part of the .NET framework you're targeting ) .
Make sure you install the proper .NET distribution
the following is a good place for build servers it have the developer tooling.
The .NET Framework 4.5.1 Developer Pack installs the multi-targeting pack for .NET Framework 4.5.1. Developers can build applications targeting the .NET Framework 4.5.1 using either Visual Studio 2012 or third party IDEs. You need to download the web installer instead of this package if you intend to redistribute .NET Framework 4.5.1.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40772
Best of luck.
C++ :
There is a "Build Tools" that contains MSBuild, Visual studio is not required.
From the official doc :
These tools allow you to build C++ libraries and applications
targeting Windows desktop. They are the same tools that you find in
Visual Studio 2015 in a scriptable standalone installer. Now you only
need to download the tools you need to build C++ projects.
Managed :
The same applied : Build Tool Managed

Visual Studio 2010 Express, Windows SDK 7.1, CMake and 64 bit

I'm running into problems generating a Visual Studio 2010 Express 64 bit project through CMake. I installed VS2010 Express first, then the Windows SDK 7.1 in order to be able to build 64 bit apps and then tried to compile my CMake project.
I do not remember this to be that difficult with 2008 Express, but with 2010 I fail again and again. 2010 searches per default for 7.0a SDK which is shipped with it. The express version seems to ship a reduced 32 bit version, which is located under
.../Program Files(X86)/Microsoft SDKs/Windows/7.0a
Windows SDK 7.1 64bit will be installed per default under
.../Program Files/Microsoft SDKs/Windows/7.0
In VS 2010 Express the platform SDK can be changed on a per-project-map basis and if I do so the inherited path macros surprisingly point to the correct SDK. The problem now is, that CMake is not happy about me screwing around in the project files by myself. Thus, it always resets the Platform SDK entry to the default value, which will make the Windows SDK point to 7.0a and result in complaints about missing 64 bit libs.
I now see two possibilities to resolve this:
Find a way to really integrate the 7.1 SDK into VS2010 Express, just like with VS2008. VS2008 searches the registry for the tag 'CurrentInstallFolder' in the Windows SDKs entry, and you can change this entry to point to another SDK.
Find a way to tell CMake (2.8.1) to set the correct Platform SDK in the project. No plan how to do this...
I would appreciate any help. 2010 is somewhat mandatory unfortunately, I personally cannot get used to it at all...
Ok, updating to the latest CMake (2.8.12) resolved this, CMake now detects the 7.1 SDK and sets it in the project files.
Edit: The toolset can be chosen in a CMake file via the CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET flag

Install WinCE 5.0 Platform Builder SDK - build code with Visual Studio 2012 or higher

I have a Windows CE 5.0-based Platform Builder image. It is intended to be installed on Visual Studio 2005. My team would like to upgrade our build tools to utilize Visual Studio 2012, but Visual Studio 2012 does not support this platform image.
To be clear; I am not asking whether or not Visual Studio 2012 (or higher) supports Platform Builder SDKs targeting Windows CE 5.0. That question has already been answered (more or less), and the answer is clearly "No."
Instead, what I'd like to do is install the Platform Builder SDK, and manually modify the Visual Studio 2012 environment to allow compilation of my Windows CE code. Features like remote debugging and deployment are acceptable losses to my team; we have our own pathway for deployment and debugging on our embedded device. What I'm really hoping to gain is simply the ability to build WinCE 5.0 code in VS2012, which was intended for VS2005. I am attempting to reduce the number of Visual Studio installations, and get access to the superior intellisense faculties of newer versions of Visual Studio.
Does anyone know if this is possible? How would I go about doing that?
There does not appear to be a way to do this, in such a fashion as to no longer require Visual Studio 2005.
You can, however, use registry hacks to force Visual Studio 2012 to build a WinCE 5.0 project by utilizing the compiler binaries from Visual Studio 2005, during compilation. This would allow you to develop code in VS2012, but would also require that VS2005 be installed for a successful build.
Here is an article explaining the steps to set this up.
VS2012 doesn't have any of the Windows CE compilers. The last one that shipped with compilers compatible with CE 5.0 was VS 2008, so that's the "latest" version you'll be able to use to build. (VS2012 is capable of building for Windows CE, but only for WEC 2013, and only after installing a WEC 2013 SDK, which includes the requisite compiler pieces).
In short, there's no way you can get VS2012 by itself to compile a CE 7.0 or earlier app.
There is a plug-in for VS 2013 that will allow you to use that IDE for managed code (I've never used it, so I can't say how well it works), but it still requires VS 2008 to be installed to get the compilers.

Portable class library in visual studio 2013 (wp7/win8)

How to create PCL wp7/win8 in visual studio 2013?
I have already installed windows phone 7 sdk and windows phone 8 sdk, but it does not help.
There is no option for wp 7.1.
Visual Studio does not support Windows Phone 7 development.
This may change in the future but, based on what has happened with previous versions of Visual Studio and separate SDKs, I suspect that is unlikely.
It's only possible to target PCL projects for SDKs that are installed.
You could build your PCL in VS2012 and consume it in a VS2103 project though.
On the other (/plus?) side, there are free versions of VS2012 and VS2013 and the can be installed side by side so you'll be able to build for WP7 for plenty of time to come.
Visual Studio 2013 has removed support for Windows Phone 7.x, Silverlight 4 and Xbox development.
For the entire list of compatibility between Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2013, see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/hh266747(v=vs.120).aspx.
Keep in mind that VS 2013 is still a preview. So maybe it will be available later but for the moment it looks like you can only create a PCL project with support for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Store apps by using Visual Studio 2012
There is a solution according to
http://www.johanlaanstra.nl/2013/09/22/portable-class-libraries-with-wp7-support-in-visual-studio-2013-rc
...was wondering why Visual Studio would upgrade the project while the
profile was there on disk. While digging through the xml files for
Profile104 (C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference
Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETPortable\v4.0\Profile\Profile104),
which is the profile I was using, I found some xml files in the
SupportedFrameworks subfolder. These xml files defined a
MinimumVisualStudioVersion and a MaximumVisualStudioVersion. For
Profile104, one of the files contained MaximumVisualStudioVersion="11"
which means Visual Studio 2012. Changing all xml files for the profile
to have MaximumVisualStudioVersion="12", which means Visual Studio
2013, made my scenario work after a restart of Visual Studio. I can
now open the PCL in Visual Studio 2013 without it being upgraded. Make
sure you restart VS after this change to make it work.

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