[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [hackers] Which Visual Studio versions are in active use?



Martin Burnicki <burnicki@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dave Hart wrote:
> > Even if you don't use it right away, please consider installing the
> > Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition and the older toolchains I
> > mentioned, as I am concerned that the next major VS release will no
> > longer have the option to install the VS 2015 (v140) and VS 2017 for
> > XP (v141) needed to target WinXP.  Installing it now will future-proof
> > you to be able to switch to using it later, and once you do, we can
> > hopefully stop maintaining the ports/winnt/vs2008 files.
>
>  From what you wrote it sounds like I even won't be able to install
> VS2022 again or on a different machine once MS has release a newer
> version. On the other hand, I have a setup program of VS2008 Express
> that (IIRC) I can still use to install VS2008 once more if I have to (or
> want to) setup another Windows machine.
>
> So all in all switching to VS2022 sounds like a big step back to me. :-(
>
> Anyway, I'll see if I can set up a VM where I can install it.

Thank you for taking some of your valuable time to look at this issue.
After a bit of digging, it seems like today the only cost-free Visual
Studio (the Community Edition) one can download is VS 2022.  It may
well be that so long as you hold onto that installer, you'll be able
to install it for years to come.  I have more confidence that once
it's installed, you'll be able to update its components for years to
come.  So my recommendation is after you install it, take a few
minutes to use the Visual Studio Installer which is installed on the
system to add the following components, so that even if updates or
reinstalls stop working in the future, you'll have the ability to
build from the ports/winnt/vs2015 tree in NTP.

Under "individual components, compilers, build tools and runtimes" install:

MSVC v140 - VS 2015 C++ build tools (v14.00)
C++ Windows XP Support for VS 2017 (v141) tools [Deprecated]

Then when you open a cloned repo's ports/winnt/vs2015/ntp.sln the
first time, hit cancel when offered the chance to retarget (convert)
to the newer toolchain.  You should then be able to build everything
as-is from the IDE.  You could also opt to use msbuild from a VS2022
"Developer Command Prompt" with the right command-line switches to
build for platform "Win32" and configuration "ReleaseXP".

Thanks again,
Dave Hart
-- 
This is hackers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subscribe: hackers+subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unsubscribe: hackers+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx