Difference between VsDevCmd.bat & vcvarsall.bat in VS2012

Question

What\'s the difference between:

• VsDevCmd.bat (Developer Command Prompt for VS2012)
• vcvarsall.bat (VS2012 x86\\x64\\ARM Nativ

Answer 1

From my understanding and looking at the various batch scripts in VS2012:

vcvarsall.bat called with x86 (or just vcvarsall.bat with no option, which defaults to x86) is identical to the VsDevCmd.bat. The batch file that vcvarsall.bat calls when passed with the x86 option is

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat

This file is identical to the VsDevCmd.bat file that is located in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat

which is what the developer command prompt calls when opened from the start menu.

Thus for more control on the platform it is better to call vcvarsall.bat with the appropriate option passed: x86 or amd64 or arm or x86_amd64 or x86_arm.