Day044 — use 2015 along with 2017 build tool

Currentlyy, I am using Visual Studio 2017. It comes with Microsoft Build Tools 2017, aka vc15. However, I have a project that needs to be compiled with Build Tools 2015, vc14. Below is the steps I took to have that achieved.

Download the Build Tools

Download the Microsoft Build Tools 2015 from the official site.

Microsoft Build Tools 2015

Run the downloaded exe file to install the Build Tools.

If it is successfully installed, you will be able to find corresponding command prompt from

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools

CMake

Open CMake-GUI (v3.10.2), choose your source and build directory as you desire. Then, click configure.

In the first run, CMake cannot detect that I have installed the Build Tools 2015, so I have to specify its location.

choose Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64 and check Specify native compilers

I select both c and c++ compiler to be pointed to Visual C++ 2015 x64 Native Build Tools Command Prompt in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools

Visual C++ 2015 x64 Native Build Tools Command Prompt

Click Finish

From the CMake console, you can see that the compiler is correctly identified.

The CXX compiler identification is MSVC 19.0.24231.0
The C compiler identification is MSVC 19.0.24231.0
Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC/bin/x86_amd64/cl.exe
Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC/bin/x86_amd64/cl.exe -- works

After a successful configuration, CMake knows the location of the Build Tools. You can just check Use default native compilers.

second run

Please correct me if I am wrong.

To build Visual Studio 2015 project in Visual Studio 2017 (v15.6.1), you should check VC++ 2015.3 v140 toolset for desktop (x86,x64) in Visual Studio Installer. Then you can build solution of a Visual Studio 2015 project.

check VC++ 2015.3 v140 toolset for desktop (x86,x64)