Visual Studio 2012 failing to detect Visual Studio 2008 build tools

Question

I am trying to use Visual Studio 2012 to build a C++ CLI application targeting .NET 3.5.

I\'ve already gotten this working on one machine, by installing Visual Studi

Answer 1

It turns out that you ALSO have to install Visual Studio 2010.

Once I installed Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2012 was able to detect the Visual Studio 2008 build tools.

It seems absolutely crazy, but there you go.

Answer 2

I ran into the exact same problem but I Installed Windows SDK 7.1 instead (or the web installer version) and that made it work also.

I remember I've installed it also to the original computer.

Remember you should uninstall first any version of Visual C++ 2010 redistributable, otherwise Windows SDK setup will fail.

I know it's not the perfect solution because Windows SDK is huge, but it's another option.

Answer 3

Before downloading anything try going to project properties -> configuration properties -> general then change the platform Toolset for the project to Visual Studio 2012 (v110)

Answer 4

As per The build tools for Visual Studio 2008 (Platform Toolset = 'v90') cannot be found,

In addition to an MSVC 9.0 toolchain which is present in VS 2008 _{(do install VS 2008 SP1, or x64 compilers will be broken)}, you also need MsBuild 4.0 toolset configuration files for this toolchain so that MsBuild can find it.

They are discreetly present in Visual Studio 2010, in the C++ x86 and x64 features, in addition to its own toolchain. They are also present in WinSDK 7.1 but its installer is broken on an x64 system; you can install just the toolset files though by running <GRMSDK_EN_DVD.iso>\Setup\vc_stdx86\vc_stdx86.msi directly (despite the name, it has toolset files for all 3 platforms).