Visual Studio 2015 - missing 64 bit compiler - c++

Currently I'm working with Visual Studio 2015 on a 32-Bit computer and create 32-bit applications in C++/CLI.
As far as I remember one could choose between creating 32 and 64-Bit applications in previous Visual Studio versions, if one has installed the 64-Bit compiler too.
Today I was trying to get the same functionality out of the 2015's version of Visual Studio, but I'm not able to find any option to install the 64-Bit compiler.
In the compiler-settings I can only choose between ARM and 32-Bit (no 64-Bit, no "any platform"). Running the Visual Studio Setup from the Windows system preferences also shows no possibility to install the 64-Bit compiler (or maybe i just don't know what to install).
QUESTION: How can I install the 64-Bit C++ compiler for Visual Studio 2015 on a 32-Bit computer?

#GSerg gave the aswer I needed in his first comment - thank you for your help!
The compiler seems to be installed by default. I just wasn't able to find the way to set the platform.

Related

Unable to find vcvarsall.bat for 64-bit Python 3.4.3 on Windows 8.1

I have ran into this problem trying to install several different python packages, and I can no longer work around this with alternate packages. I read through the other solutions, but none seem to be specific to my particular Python version and operating system.
I am running Python 3.4.3 64 bit on Windows 8.1 laptop. While install packages such as esutil and fitsio, I get the error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat. This indicates it can't find Visual Studio 2010 C++ compiler. However I know Visual Studio Express does not have a 64 bit C++ compiler, so that solution does not work. With Visual Studio Express installed I then get ValueError: ['path']
Also, since this is a Windows 8 laptop I can't download the additional Visual Studio SDK 7.1 which is also suggested to alleviate the problem. What Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 software can I download for Windows 8 in order get a 64 bit C++ compiler?
Alternatively is there a work around using a different C++ compiler, such as mingw32. I tried mingw32 from a Cygwin installation, but that also fails, so I suspect I need a 64-bit mingw c++ compiler as well.

Which Visual Studio to target broadest array of Windows machines?

I develop a large open source C++ program. On Windows, we typically build our downloadable releases with Visual Studio Express. In the past, I've tried to use an old version of Windows and an old version of Visual Studio to try to maintain compatibility with as many user's machines as possible -- and to also keep the development environment as accessible as possible to contributors.
We do use some C++11. We currently use VS 2010 Express on Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (64 bit). We target Win32. We do not use any .Net stuff.
Unfortunately, as built, our program crashes on Windows 8.1 -- it starts to load, but crashes with a non helpful error message 'myprogram.exe Has stopped working.' I can't yet tell if this 'should work', or if it is a bug in our program that only Win8 triggers (it works fine on earlier Windows as well as OSX and Linux).
I'm finding it very difficult to figure out the target compatibility matrix for Windows & Visual Studio. Assume that all versions of Windows and Visual Studio are available.
So, what version of Visual Studio and/or Windows SDK 'should work' to produce a single executable that will work on the widest range of Windows versions?
Or, what is the minimum number of builds (and how) we could do to target the widest array of Windows versions?
Alternatively, would MinGW provide a substantially better result for us? If so, which version & platform should we use?
We currently only build 32-bit versions, but how would going 64-bit change this discussion?

MSVCP100.dll not found error even when it is installed

i get the following error when i try to run an exe on a x64 machine that was build for x86 CPU using the MC++ compiler (vs2010) on a x86 machine:
i already have visual studio 2012 (along with Visual C++ 2012 Update 4 redistributable- both x86 and x64) installed on this second (x64) machine.
A quick search tells me the "MSVCR100.dll" is already present in "C:\Windows\System32".
i tried to install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable but it exited with an error telling me that a superior version is already installed.
Please guide me what i am doing wrong. :)
Firstly, in 64-bit versions of Windows, 32-bit system executables and application extension files (aka DLLs) are placed in %systemroot%\SysWOW64 instead of %systemroot%\System32 (which, somewhat counterintuitively, contains 64-bit versions in a 64-bit Windows). So the SysWOW64 folder has to be checked for the x86/32-bit MSVC(++) DLLs.
Secondly, though installation of the corresponding visual studio version on the target machine or having accompanied the distributed program with the required C(++) DLLs should, theoretically, solve the problem, it's not necessary. It's sufficient to have the corresponding MSVC++ redistributable package installed (i.e. e.g. Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x86 redistributable package in this particular case).
Notes:
The aforementioned info are theoretically correct but damaged Windows installations or ... may not conform.
Including the C++ DLLs with the distributed program is acceptable (and possibly a conservative but correct decision) but installing a Visual Studio version solely to be able to use the DLLs in question definitely isn't.
As a side note, C++ redistributable packages don't install the debug versions of the DLLs so installation of or access to a corresponding Visual Studio version is necessary for running debug-compiled applications.
Your application needs the dll for VS2010. you should place MSVCR100.dll and MSVCP100.dll from your x86 machine beside your exe. You can also install VS2010 alongside your current VS2012. then you should also install the Service Pack1 for VS2010 to work properly. After installing VS2010 you have access to both mentioned dlls and also you probably don't need to copy them to your exe directory.

How can I compile c++ on (64bit) windows to make a 64bit exe?

Using the g++ compiler that came with code::blocks I can compile 32bit programmes but when I try to compile to a 64bit programme it tells me that 64 bit isn't implemented, even though I have 64bit os.
How can I compile c++ to make a 64bit exe?
Download Microsoft Visual C++, and set the target to 64-bit.
Why make programming harder than it needs to be?
If you are not limited to gcc, you can use Microsoft's compiler from Visual Studio Express 2010 with Windows SDK (both are free) and you can configure Visual C++ Projects to Target 64-Bit Platforms
Download the 64-bit version of gcc, or recompile it yourself with 64-bit support.
I think mingw comes with a version of gcc that can compile 64-bit binaries.
Code:Blocks supports Visual Studio as the compiler, you can download it here http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-cpp-express, also the fact you have a 64 bit OS has got nothing to do with whether you can compile 64 but code, it even has nothing to do with the CPU architecture, think about it, you can compile Android code in Linux, OSX and Windows and you are not running on an ARM CPU. The Code:Blocks page tells you how to configure it to use the MS compiler.
If you want the 64 bit compiler you need to install either the SDK or the WDK

Visual C++11 executables and Windows XP [duplicate]

I compile my C++ source code with Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview. I statically link to the runtime library.
The resulting executable cannot be executed on Windows XP. When I try to execute it on Windows XP I get the error message "[Executable Path] is not a valid Win32 Application.".
According to Microsoft Visual Studio 11 won't support Windows XP.
How does it work that the resulting executable cannot be executed on Windows XP? Is there anything special within the executable?
They seem to drop support for older systems in every new release of VS (NT4,2000,XP) Even if you don't use the CRT at all, they still force the PE subsystem version to high numbers. You can work around that by changing the numbers back to 5.0 in a post build step. Just changing those numbers should allow the exe to start on XP unless the new CRT is using WinAPI functions that don't exist on XP.
The other alternative if you want to keep using VS11 is to use multi-targeting and older compilers...
Visual Studio 2012 will be able to target Windows XP later in 2012:
Targeting Windows XP with C++ in Visual Studio 2012
"Later this fall, Microsoft will provide an update to Visual Studio 2012 that will enable C++ applications to target Windows XP. This update will make the necessary modifications to the Visual C++ 2012 compiler, runtime, and libraries to enable developers to create applications and DLLs that run on Windows XP and higher versions as well as Windows Server 2003 and higher."
Edit: This has now happened (phew!)
The workaround is to use a different Platform Toolset, which will link a different version of CRT and produce binaries compatible to older operating systems.
See more here: Target Windows XP in Visual Studio 11 Beta using the Visual Studio 2010 compiler and libraries.
With v90 toolset your binary will be able to run even in older systems, such as Windows 2000.
http://blogs.msdn.com/resized-image.ashx/__size/550x0/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-65-69/7444.BlogPic.png
The runtime libraries bundled with VS 2010 and higher enforce your executable to import two new functions from kernel32.dll that are missing on Windows XP: EncodePointer and DecodePointer. Those are needed for yet another idiotic naive attempt to enhance the software "security".
In VS 2010 there is an option to use the runtime libraries of Visual Studio 2008, which solves this problem. I don't know if there's such an option in later versions of VS.