As may be known by many, the Express versions of Visual Studio 2008 don't include support for MFC and a few other packages required to compile a lot of windows programs.
So, here's my problem:
I have the full version of Visual Studio 2005. I've been using this to compile a project that a friend of mine was working on, so that I could test it out for him and continue to track bugs and things. Recently, he upgraded that project to VS 2008, which I don't have. So, I downloaded the express version in the hopes that I could simply compile with that, but no luck, it complains about headers missing left and right.
It seems to me that since I already have the full version of VS 2005, I'm bound to have at least some (perhaps older) version of the files in question that his project needs to compile against.
Is there a way I can convince VS 2008 to also look in 2005's directories for include files and library files to compile against?
Furthermore, is this a bad idea? I would really prefer not to go out and purchase VS 2008 full, as I'll never use it myself. (2005 does the job fine for me at the moment, and I tend to prefer GCC anyway.)
Thanks
You can use the VC++ compiler directly from the command line, or just create a new project w/ the source in Visual Studio 2005. Unless he is using some functionality provided in the new versions of MFC/ATL in 2008/2008sp1, you should be able to compile the project just fine.
See ("Create Project from Existing Source") in Visual Studio 2005. It is unfortunate that they don't include these libraries with the Express Editions.
Use the vcvars*.bat script(s) from Visual Studio 2005. See this blogpost from VC++ Blog to see how. You will use the old compilers, but the build system from Visual Studio 2008.
You can go into Tools>Options>Projects and Solutions>VC++ Directories
and alter the Include, Library, and Source (and Reference maybe?) folders to use VC++ 2005's folders.
I'd guess you just replace $(VCInstallDir) with a hardcoded VS 2005 path. I'd record the original values before doing this.
However, have you just tried using the OLD 2005 sln and vcproj files? Keep using 2005 on your end and 2008 on his. Keep two sets of these files for each IDE. Any issues are going to be with the library mismatch - which you're not avoiding by using 2008's tools with 2005's libraries.
The simple way to deal with this would be to revert the solution and project files back to their visual studio 2005 state from source control(you are using source control right?). At this point you can compile the project as long as your friend does not use any of the mfc 9 only functions.
The first thing I would try is loading this up in VS 2005 by just modifying the version of the .sln and the .vcproj files. In the .vcproj change the version from 9.00 to 8.00 and in the .sln change the format version from 10.00 to 9.00.
If you don't have fancy stuff in the project you have a high chance of just being able to use it like this. Also this would avoid having to update 2 project and solution files.
On this website it is shown how MFC code can be compiled with the Visual Studio Express versions:
link
Just for the record, I've done that(by modifying the include directories and library directories from inside the IDE) and it's working pretty well, I have MFC, ATL, everything.
I've found this explanation. http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/30439/How-to-compile-MFC-code-in-Visual-C-Express
Related
I wonder if anybody has experience converting VS 2008 C++ solution to VS 2017/19 without switching to newer SDK and toolset. The solution is quite old, very large, uses 3-rd party libraries, so full conversion is out of the question. The goal is only to switch to better user interface.
Theoretically it is probably possible, although I successfully converted only very basic C++ MFC project.
Project settings in VS 2017 show only latest toolset. To make other toolsets to appear, I had to install VS 2010, and also add SDK 8.1 from VS installer (without VS 2010, this option is not available). Then select toolset v.90 and SDK 8.1 for each project in solution.
At this point, simple converted project works fine. A large legacy solution has a lots of issues. I resolved generic ones, but it looks like uphill battle. For example, C++ directories are physically different and some of the files are missing. It may be possible to eventually assign original VS 2008 directories to each project and/or copy missing files, but I have the impression of doing something illegal.
The question is, is it a valid procedure and still possible after latest updates.
Thanks==
Me and my partner are both sharing a c++ solution via subversion.
He is using Visual Studio 11 and I am using Visual Studio 2010.
After the first time he commited and i updated, i get the following error:
Error 31 error MSB8008: Specified platform toolset (v110) is not installed or invalid. Please make sure that a supported PlatformToolset value is selected.
also, in header files i get the following error on #include <stdio.h>:
error: cannot open source file "stdio.h"
I am guessing this is a compatibility issue. How can we resolve this?
In Visual Studio 11 there is a property option that allows you to specify the platform toolset.
Platform Toolset v110 is used by default if you create a new project starting from Visual Studio 11, but if can change it to v100 that is the one used by Visual Studio 2010.
.sln and .vcxproj files saved in Visual Studio 11 are not backward-compatible with VS2010. Even if they were compatible, eventually you'd step across a code which is compilable in VS11 but not in VS10.
The best (and probably the only) way is to agree on using exactly the same development environment.
A bit late in the discussion, but since you're using source control, you can remove the project and solution files from the repository and just share source code. Obviously, if you add new modules and such to a project, you'll have to manually add them in the other solution, but at least you wouldn't have to worry about this incompatibility. If you wanted to get down to it, the application can be built from the command line using just the compiler and linker switches, which tend to be far more compatible between revisions. Finally, you could use another build tool (besides MSBuild), that remains compatible across studio versions.
If you decide to remove the solution and project files, one thing to consider is saving a copy of the original YourApp.sln as YourApp.sln.2010. Then you'll have something to seed future solutions from, but updates to projects and solutions will all need done from VS 2010 and the file then copied to their .2010 version and maintained manually.
If SVN has support for patches, or if you're willing to run quilt externally (or if you switch to mercurial, you can use the MQ extensions), you can create the patch files to convert from 2010 to 2011 and remove the upgrade patche(s) before synch.
Drake's solution didn't work for me as the properties for all projects in the solution were already correctly set to v100. However, the fix that did work was to clean the builds and remove all other files that weren't source files or project files. I think it was probably removing the files projname.vcxproj.user that fixed it, as perhaps the toolchain preference was somehow overriden in the user preferences.
I have searched for answers until I have become crossed-eyed and confused.
I have a Windows XP environment with Visual Studios 2010. I have downloaded and extracted CppUnit 1.12.1 from Sourceforge to C:\CppUnit. I understand I must use Visual Studio to open src/CppUnitLibraries.dsw and Batch Build all of the projects it opens to populate the lib directory with libraries. This is essentially the extent of the CppUnit "installation" process.
However when I try to open CppUnitLibraries.dsw, Visual Studio says the project must be converted to the current Visual C++ project format. If I click "yes" (to convert and open the project), it says the project file cannot be loaded and it asks if I want to remove the unloadable project from the solution, to which I say "No" since I'm certain this is not what I want to have happen. It does this for many projects in the CppUnitLibraries.dsw solution and I'm assuming this is unwanted behavior.
A few of my search results indicated that I should open src\msvc6\testrunner\MsDevCallerListCtrl.cpp, find the line that says...
#import "libid:80cc9f66-e7d8-4ddd-85b6-d9e6cd0e93e2" version("7.0") lcid("0") raw_interfaces_only named_guids"
...and replace the 7.0 with 10.0. But this does not help.
Am I doing something wrong? What must I do to get started with CppUnit? (I'm sorry if this is a very noobish question. I'm stuck, frustrated, and very confused.)
I've successfully converted CPPUNIT 1.12.1 to be a VS2010 solution. It's described here: http://blogs.powersoft.ca/erict/archive/2012/02/21/cppunit-in-vs2010ndashwith-a-sample.aspx and the solution can be downloaded from there.
I believe that the extension .dsw was used by Visual Studio 6 in 1998.
By Visual Studio .NET 2003, they had moved to .sln Solution Files. Although the format has changed somewhat, Visual Studio 2010 still uses 2010 files.
So, if you've downloaded some software that comes with a .dsw file, Visual Studio 2010 will need to convert that file to a .sln to be able to use it.
Each time we've upgraded to a newer version of Visual Studio, at work, over the years, we've had to make some source code changes, for the newer compiler. So I'd say that any C++ code which comes with .dsw file is likely to require some significant effort.
I'd suggest trying to find a newer build or version of CppUnit, or looking for another tool.
This question looks useful.
I have a huge Visual Studio 2010 solution. I work with Visual Studio 2005, so I want to convert the solution to the desired version. Basically, it's a portable C++ code so it should compile on Visual Studio 2005 too. Changing the version in the *.sln file doesn't help because the *.vcxproj format is completely different from the old *.vcproj format.
Recreating the solution by hand is not an option because of its size. Also there may be some non-default compiler flags, dependencies, etc. that I don't know of (and I can't look through ALL this XML junk that I don't understand).
There is already a related question on How Do I Downgrade a C++ Visual Studio 2008 Project to 2005. However, the utility suggested there supports at most Visual Studio 2008.
Any suggestions?
It really totally sucks, that every proprietary IDE today thinks it needs to create its own project file format.
"Dear IDE developers, just use Makefiles and create a nice GUI for it so that also people without Makefile knowledge can use it!" In VS6 it was at least possible to import/export Makefiles, but not today anymore. And it was possible to use nmake for automated builds. No IDE needed to be installed, just the toolchain which could be grabbed by a simple checkout without installation.
I use CMake now. It's free, it's cross-platform, it is well supported in free IDEs like KDevelop, QtCreator, etc. It can generate Makefiles and Visual Studio projects.
So you maintain only one project source, the CMakeLists.txt file and can work with any IDE. No pain with different versions of Visual Studio or with other proprietary project file formats.
This way you can generate or VS projects for developing and you can generate Makefiles for commandline builds using nmake like in the good old days.
BTW, it's much easier to change settings in a CMakeLists.txt than clicking through various GUI dialogs. But this is a matter of personal preferences.
In my work made a utility which utilized the EnvDTE.dll and scanned a vcproj-file and optionally all vcproj-files within a sln-file. It compared all settings with a "template" and would issue a warning or optionally update the setting to correct values. We used this utility so that settings would be verified to be correct and consistent throughout all projects. I haven't updated the utility to 2010 yet due to other priorities.
EnvDTE hasn't changed much from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010. Perhaps it is possible to create a simple utility which opens the vcxproj-file using DTE100 and saves it using DTE90, or earlier.
Easiest way is probably to create a new project in VS 2005, and use the add existing item dialog to add the code to the project. I'd suggest using 'Empty Project' as the project type, so you don't have a lot of rubbish autogenerated for you that you'll just delete anyway.
I haven't tried it, but this looks promising:
http://www.emmet-gray.com/Articles/ProjectConverter.htm
edit: Nope, not promising, sorry :-(
I downloaded open-source version of Qt from the site and have compiled it with nmake, but I'm having trouble using it in my projects. It seems that Visual Studio can't find the Qt headers, even though I added the paths to my PATH, INCLUDE, and LIB variables. I tried installing the Qt Visual Studio add-in but it only supports Visual Studio 2008.
Has anyone gotten Qt to work with Visual Studio 2010? Or do I have to wait until Qt 4.7 is officially released for Visual Studio 2010 support?
Either download the pre-built vs2008 package or build it using cmake's vs2008 profile and then open the resulting .sln file in vs2010 and let it do the conversion.
edit - annoying feature so far is that the vs plugin doesn't support vs2010 which makes it essentially impossible to use for desktop app development.
Traditionally VS support was part of the paid licences, with the OS package you only get mingw support. Things are changing, but might have some rough edges for a while.
OTOH, mingw has a HUGE advantage: deployment. You don't have to chase around the vcredist_x86 files and all the associated voodoo. Just be sure to include all the .DLLs you use and that's it.
Also, there's QtCreator. It's not as featureful or omniscient as VS; but it does feel a lot nicer and easier to use. It takes off all the tedious work of nmake, and embeds the UI editors. And it's cross platform!
honestly, for me VS can drop dead this minute and i won't miss it.
Qt V4.8.0 contains prebuilt binaries for Visual Studio 2010 so you don't need to build manually anymore:
http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/windows-cpp-vs2010