How can I use PowerShell with the Visual Studio Command Prompt?

Question

I\'ve been using Beta 2 for a while now and it\'s been driving me nuts that I have to punt to cmd.exe when running the VS2010 Command Prompt. I used to have a nice vsvars200

Answer 1

For someone who is still struggling with it in 2020 and Visual Studio Code 1.41.1, so a bit off topic here.

Using all different parts of code from above and the Internet e.g. from https://help.appveyor.com/discussions/questions/18777-how-to-use-vcvars64bat-from-powershell and with a step by step approach I managed to have the below script working.

Saved into VSCode "settings.json" and with the Code Runner extension installed.

With Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version "cl.exe" from Visual Studio 2015/14.0:

"code-runner.runInTerminal": true,
"code-runner.executorMap": {
  "cpp": "cd $dir; pushd \"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\\VC\"; cmd.exe /c \"call vcvarsall.bat x86_amd64 & set > %temp%\\vcvars.txt\"; Get-Content \"$env:temp\\vcvars.txt\" | Foreach-Object { if ($_ -match \"^(.*?)=(.*)$\") {   Set-Content \"env:\\$($matches[1])\" $matches[2]  }}; popd; cls; cl *.cpp; .\\\"$fileNameWithoutExt.exe\"; Write-Host -NoNewLine 'Press any key to continue...';  $null = $Host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey('NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown'); del \"$fileNameWithoutExt.exe\"; del \"$fileNameWithoutExt.obj\""}

With Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version "cl.exe" from Visual Studio 2019/16.4.3:

"code-runner.runInTerminal": true,
"code-runner.executorMap": {
  "cpp": "cd $dir; pushd \"c:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community\\VC\\Auxiliary\\Build\"; cmd.exe /c \"call vcvarsall.bat x86_amd64 & set > %temp%\\vcvars.txt\"; Get-Content \"$env:temp\\vcvars.txt\" | Foreach-Object { if ($_ -match \"^(.*?)=(.*)$\") {   Set-Content \"env:\\$($matches[1])\" $matches[2]  }}; popd; cls; cl *.cpp; .\\\"$fileNameWithoutExt.exe\"; Write-Host -NoNewLine 'Press any key to continue...';  $null = $Host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey('NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown'); del \"$fileNameWithoutExt.exe\"; del \"$fileNameWithoutExt.obj\""}

HTH

Answer 2

The simplest option is to run the VS 2010 command prompt and then start PowerShell.exe. If you really want to do this from your "home" PowerShell prompt, the approach you show is the way to go. I use a script that Lee Holmes wrote a while back:

<#
.SYNOPSIS
   Invokes the specified batch file and retains any environment variable changes
   it makes.
.DESCRIPTION
   Invoke the specified batch file (and parameters), but also propagate any  
   environment variable changes back to the PowerShell environment that  
   called it.
.PARAMETER Path
   Path to a .bat or .cmd file.
.PARAMETER Parameters
   Parameters to pass to the batch file.
.EXAMPLE
   C:\PS> Invoke-BatchFile "$env:VS90COMNTOOLS\..\..\vc\vcvarsall.bat"       
   Invokes the vcvarsall.bat file to set up a 32-bit dev environment.  All 
   environment variable changes it makes will be propagated to the current 
   PowerShell session.
.EXAMPLE
   C:\PS> Invoke-BatchFile "$env:VS90COMNTOOLS\..\..\vc\vcvarsall.bat" amd64      
   Invokes the vcvarsall.bat file to set up a 64-bit dev environment.  All 
   environment variable changes it makes will be propagated to the current 
   PowerShell session.
.NOTES
   Author: Lee Holmes    
#>
function Invoke-BatchFile
{
   param([string]$Path, [string]$Parameters)  

   $tempFile = [IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()  

   ## Store the output of cmd.exe.  We also ask cmd.exe to output   
   ## the environment table after the batch file completes  
   cmd.exe /c " `"$Path`" $Parameters && set > `"$tempFile`" " 

   ## Go through the environment variables in the temp file.  
   ## For each of them, set the variable in our local environment.  
   Get-Content $tempFile | Foreach-Object {   
       if ($_ -match "^(.*?)=(.*)$")  
       { 
           Set-Content "env:\$($matches[1])" $matches[2]  
       } 
   }  

   Remove-Item $tempFile
}

Note: this function will be available in the PowerShell Community Extensions 2.0 module-based release coming soon.

Answer 3

Stealing liberally from here: http://allen-mack.blogspot.com/2008/03/replace-visual-studio-command-prompt.html, I was able to get this to work. I added the following to my profile.ps1 and all is well with the world.

pushd 'c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC'
cmd /c "vcvarsall.bat&set" |
foreach {
  if ($_ -match "=") {
    $v = $_.split("="); set-item -force -path "ENV:\$($v[0])"  -value "$($v[1])"
  }
}
popd
write-host "`nVisual Studio 2010 Command Prompt variables set." -ForegroundColor Yellow

This has worked well for years - until Visual Studio 2015. vcvarsall.bat no longer exists. Instead, you can use the vsvars32.bat file, which is located in the Common7\Tools folder.

pushd 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\Tools'    
cmd /c "vsvars32.bat&set" |
foreach {
  if ($_ -match "=") {
    $v = $_.split("="); set-item -force -path "ENV:\$($v[0])"  -value "$($v[1])"
  }
}
popd
write-host "`nVisual Studio 2015 Command Prompt variables set." -ForegroundColor Yellow

Things have changed yet again for Visual Studio 2017. vsvars32.bat appears to have been dropped in favor of VsDevCmd.bat. The exact path may vary depending on which edition of Visual Studio 2017 you're using.

pushd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\Tools"
cmd /c "VsDevCmd.bat&set" |
foreach {
  if ($_ -match "=") {
    $v = $_.split("="); set-item -force -path "ENV:\$($v[0])"  -value "$($v[1])"
  }
}
popd
Write-Host "`nVisual Studio 2017 Command Prompt variables set." -ForegroundColor Yellow