Toolbox Disabled in Visual Studio Express - c++

So I decided to learn some Win32 programming in C++ and thought i will try adding the controls from the toolbox and tada!! no tools there. Even if i try to choose the Com controls manually it still doesn't get shown. If i do Show All , i can see all the tools are disabled even the ones i selected.
I have seen and tried almost all of the solutions seen on the internet (reset toolbox, remove the tbd files, remove reg keys, fresh installation etc) to no avail.
I was using VS2012 Express initially but I have also tried a fresh installation of VC++ 2010 Express with the same result.
So I have two questions:
1) Are the tools not supposed to be there in an Express installation?
2) If they are supposed to be there could someone help me with fixing this issue?

This is by design. The Express editions don't support building GUI applications in C++. All of the controls in the toolbox require .NET. You'll need to create a new project of the appropriate type using C# or Visual Basic to use any of the controls.

Related

Creating a portable, cross-platform, open-source C++ GUI application that works out of the box?

I've been looking around to see how I'd accomplish that which is described in the title. That is, I'd like to create a C++ GUI application that:
is portable (no installer)
is cross-platform (Qt solves this)
is open source
works out of the box (i.e. no C++ redistributable installs needed)
I've run into several issues trying to accomplish this. I've narrowed it down to using Qt and NOT using the Visual Studio compiler. Let me explain.
Using Qt would fulfill the cross-platform requirement; it's also highly acclaimed in regard to C++ GUI applications. The issue lies with portability and not having a ton of dependency packages to install before being able to use the application. My goal would be for someone to download a .zip file containing an .exe (and I'd be willing to include other support files e.g. DLLs if necessary) and be able to extract and run that exe out of the box without having to do anything else.
And here's another kicker: as much as I'd like to use Visual Studio (with the Qt Visual Studio Add-in), it just doesn't seem feasible given my requirements. This post covers my issues pretty nicely. Simply put, if I use the Visual Studio compiler, I'd need to either create an installer (no longer a portable app), redistribute some Microsoft DLLs with the app (possible licensing and redist issues here?), or statically link the Visual C++ libraries into the executable (frowned upon technique).
Is there any way to be able to use Visual Studio and fulfill the requirements listed above? Visual Studio is just too fully-featured to pass up. If it's not possible, I think the only other alternatives would be to use a different IDE and/or compiler. For example, I could use QtCreator with MinGW, but then I'd be losing out on some awesome VS debugging features.
My main questions:
Is there any way I can fulfill the requirements above and still use Visual Studio?
Am I wrong about QtCreator not being as fully functional as Visual Studio?
What would be the best way to approach fulfilling my application requirements?
Thanks in advance.
I think your best bet would be to use QT with the MinGW environment. It allows you to create a portable application that supplies runtime DLLs by itself, with added bonus of being completely open source. The QT online installer gives you the option to install the complete MinGW system, and it will work out of the box, not much setup needed.
You could still use Visual Studio for development; there even is a QT plugin for it (I am not sure if VS2015 is supported, but if not that should only take some time).
QTCreator is actually a quite nice IDE, but it cannot stand up to Visual Studio. It is obviously optimized to cater to the needs of QT programmers, but I found that it is quite clunky from time to time. If your project is small it could be a viable choice, but since Visual Studio 2015 Community is basically free I would opt for that. The VS plugin will still use QTCreator's GUI editor though (which is really good)

Visual Studio 2010 Express 64 bit Properties Missing

I'm trying to run OpenCV with Microsoft Visual C++ Express 2010. I'm using Windows 7 64 bit. It seems I have to compile the code (using the OpenCV libraries) as a x64 application. This is fine. I installed the Windows SDK 7.1 that allows you to do this. So now I go to the dropdown menu, configuration manager and select x64 (copying from Win32). But here I run into a problem. I can't seem to edit the properties in this configuration.
If I change back to Win32 and go to project properties I have all the usual options (Configuration Properties -> General, Debugging, VC++ Directories etc.). But in x64 all I have is a practically blank window that has the Common Properties->Framework and References menus. I can't modify anything.
If I try adding a new property sheet in the Property Manger to Debug|x64, I can name and add it, but when I click on it says "There are no property pages for the selection".
I have searched every possible relevant forum for this! Maybe I'm just using the wrong search terms, but I can't seem to find anyone with this exact problem. Am I just missing something about using properties? Or is this a bug?
Thanks!
Visual C++ compilers are removed when you upgrade Visual Studio 2010 Professional or Visual Studio 2010 Express to Visual Studio 2010 SP1 if Windows SDK v7.1 is installed. For anyone else who has come across this problem I would recommend updating Visual Studio 2010 SP1 via the below link.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4422
Cheers.
Well, even I faced a problem something similar to this in the start, I am not sure, whether my approach would solve your problem, but, let me give it a try.
After making it x64 as explained in your first step, just click on "ok" and close that window, now, select your project or right click on it, you ll find project properties at the bottom, then use it, you ll find all the available options you need.
when you say, you are seeing "common properties" which means that, you are trying to access the properties of solution not the project, so, select the project before accessing its properties.
your approach of adding a property sheet must work well, go to property manager ->right click on debug/64-> add new property sheet -> name it, save it, you must access it from the next go.
Just to let anyone know who might be having the same problem, I didn't manage to fix it but I did find a work-around. The latest version of OpenCV (2.4.8 I think) would not compile as a 32 bit application. It gave me an error which apparently means there is a conflict because I have a 64 bit OS. As I stated above, I couldn't get the x64 configuration working correctly. My work-around was to use an older version of OpenCV (2.4.6) and this works fine as a 32 bit application. It has the same functionality. The official OpenCV website has a list of previous versions. Now I have it all working fine!

Rich gui in MFC/C++ application

we have once application build using MFC/C++. We want make the bit rich UI like VS 2010 or outlook etc... at last we want give new look to our app like Microsoft does on every release of their products.
Please suggest me to topic that i need to look into or suggest me the option for the same.
If you're using Visual Studio 2010 or higher, the MFC application wizard itself will generate UI like VS 2010 with tabs and docking windows. In fact you can create an application that looks like VS 2010 without writing a single line of code. There is also support for the ribbon control which has replaced the menus in the new office applications.
As I am assuming you are going to use C++/native code, MFC is still the way to go or you can choose the WTL also. If you are ready yo go to a totally different direction then QT is one of the most advanced and modern cross platform library. MFC feels old compared to QT. AFAIK you can not use ribbon control in QT without microsoft license.
Another option is to go to managed way, you can use WPF with C#.
As already mentioned, you can use the new classes in the MFC feature pack, which came with Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1.
MSDN provided a tutorial how to migrate an old MFC application to the new MFC feature pack classes here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb983935%28v=vs.90%29.aspx

No MFC templates available for a new C++ project - Visual C++ Express

i've been googling before posting this but i havent been able to find anything on the topic.. yet i dont think its a very tricky one so please forgive for posting :o).
for a new job i am getting into C++, and following some tutorials. in particular one is about MFC, it shows how to create a project , selecting MFC application and so on. So, i installed Visual C++ Express 2010 on both a vista and a Win 7, and both time i had the same issue: when i go to new project , I have no "MFC" menu . some screenshots from that tutorial , and from some other on Visual C++ 2010 clearly show that it can be there. to be more specific, on corner left I have "installed templates" , then "Visual C++" and "CLR", Win32" and "General" , no MFC.
as these are "installed templates", i guess i should have to install it, but i found no clear indication on the topic; from what i found it should more or less be there from the beginning ... i also found a way to add MFC DLL through creating a Win32 application, but it doesnt seem its exactly the same thing .. I spent also some time on the menus of Visual C++ but did not find any clear way to add new templates like in Eclipse...
Well, I hope I made myself clear, i think this is pretty basic but if anyone could give me a hand on that one i'd greatly appreciate.
Cheers
Vincent
Visual Studio C++ Express does not support creating MFC applications.
If you don`t mind the leaking of unicode support, you can downlaod the visual studio 2013 express for desktop and install the free mfc mbcs supportfrom microsoft.com

How to create a step by step wizard in C++ (with unmanaged code) in Visual Studio 2010

I would like to build a small wizard in C++ with no dependencies on any framework.
Apparently, is really simple, but I don't know where to start. Can you point me to good information (tutorials, etc) on it. Should I use MFC Application or a Win32 project? Is there any step by step guide ?
I'm using VS 2010. The majority of info I'd found on MFC is really old. It seems like the vast majority of development is going .net.
Look up Property Sheets in MFC http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cfs4wk4e%28VS.80%29.aspx