Installation of Visual Studio Build Tools.

[dawlane]

The current documentation for desktop targets on MS Windows states the requirements be either MinGW, or MS Visual Studio should be installed.

The first thing to note is that Cerberus X will work with Visual Studio 2022, providing that the MSVC v142 - VS 2019 C++ x64/x86 build tools to be installed with whatever is the latest WindowsSDK 10/11. If you wish to use any older versions of Visual Studio or any old versions of Build Tools for Visual Studio, then you will need to have a Microsoft account with the Visual Studio Dev Essentials subscription; this should be a free.

The general installation process, that is providing that you have the necessary hard drive space, is to run the Visual Studio Installer. And when it presents you with the components to install, you select the Desktop development with C++ workload along with the aforementioned MSVC v142 - VS 2019 C++ x64/x86 build tools optional component. The optional component isn't required if using the Visual Studio Installer for Visual Studio 2019.

Installing the Visual Studio IDE tool suite gives you the ability to load the Cerberus project into Visual Studio, where you can profile and debug the actual C++ code.

But if hard drive space is limited, then you can just download the Build Tools for Visual Studio.
NOTE: Using the normal Visual Studio installer will not work correctly to just install the build tools with the following below.

If using the Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022, then download aforementioned Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022. Make sure that the Windows File Explorer is set to show file extensions and create a new text file called msvc2022CXLoadout.vsconfig, and copy, paste and save the code below.

{
  "version": "1.0",
  "components": [
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Roslyn.Compiler",
    "Microsoft.Component.MSBuild",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreBuildTools",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreBuildTools",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Redist.14.Latest",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TextTemplating",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreIde",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.NativeDesktop.Core",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.20348",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.VC.Tools.142.x86.x64",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools"
  ]
}

You then need to open a terminal and change directory to where the Build Tools for Visual Installer was downloaded to and type:

vs_BuildTools.exe --config "FULL_PATH_TO_/msvc2022CXLoadout.vsconfig"

The Visual Studio Installer should show something like:

The Windows SDK can be changed to suit. The default is to use Windows 10, which should be good for a long while yet.
Leave the installation locations as they are, unless you know what you are doing.

The last thing that needs to be modified is the MSBUILD_PATH config variable to where MSBuild is located. You will find this in the config.winnt.txt file located in the Cerberus bin directory. Change it to:

MSBUILD_PATH="${PROGRAMFILES(x86)}\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe"

If someone has the Build Tools for Visual Studio 2019, then follow the same process as for the Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022, but save the code below int a file called msvc2022CXLoadout.vsconfig.

{
"version": "1.0",
"components": [
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Roslyn.Compiler",
 "Microsoft.Component.MSBuild",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreBuildTools",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreBuildTools",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Redist.14.Latest",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.19041",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TextTemplating",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreIde",
 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.NativeDesktop.Core",
"Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools"
]
}

The MSBUILD_PATH should then be modified to:

MSBUILD_PATH="${PROGRAMFILES(x86)}\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe"

You can then use either #CC_USE_MINGW=False or #GLFW_USE_MINGW=False in a source file depending on the desktop target.

 

[anonymous-user]

The Visual Studio Installer should show something like:

Thank you for this. While I have no plans to install Visual Studio (if I can get away with never needing it), that reluctance may change as I get further into Cerberus?

Btw, one of the images, didn't get included properly.