How to compile VC++ 2010 projects using Visual Stu

Question

I have a lot of projects done with VS2010 in C++. Now we have switched to VS2012 but we want to continue building the projects with the VS2010 runtime (we need to support Windows XP).

To our understanding this could be possible using Windows SDK 7.1 as the VC compiler is there so we installed it. VS2012 recognized the SDK and now we have a Platform Toolset named Windows7.1SDK.

The problem comes when building the projects as some projects are returning a:

error MSB6006: "CL.exe" exited with code -1073741515.

Also, projects depending on the MFCs are failing too. MFCs aren't available with Windows SDK? Does this mean that we need to buy VS2010 licenses to install them on machines with VS2012 just to build using the VS2010 compiler?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I would try raise the msbuild verbosity level (it is in Tools->Options->Project and Solution-> MSBuild) and check out the command of CL.exe with full parameters. Then check if it is different from what you saw on VS2010.

Answer 2

In fall Microsoft will release an update to support windows xp in visual studio 2012, you can read more in this MSDN blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2012/06/15/10320645.aspx

Answer 3

Looks like it's not possible at all, mainly because nothing but VS2010 is deploying the MFC libraries and we have a lot of projects using them.

We'll have to buy licenses for VS2010 and VS2012 :S