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In order to compile an app with cl cpp compiler in the command line on previous versions of Visual studio I ran the vcvars64.bat script and then compiler worked as expected.

I have recently installed Visual Studio 2019. I have found vcvar64.bat script at the following location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Auxiliary\Build.

But running this script doesn't make cl compiler work. Even simple 3 line cpp files fail compilation with silly errors like "stddef.h" file not found. Compiler works as expected if you are using it from IDE.

What do you need to do to make VS2019 cpp compiler work in command line?

Andrey R
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  • Try `"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64` (sorry about formatting, took it from a script I use) – ChrisMM Jan 09 '20 at 18:41
  • @ChrisMM vcvars64.bat just calls `vcvarsall.bat" x64` so should be equivalent – Alan Birtles Jan 09 '20 at 19:40
  • @AlanBirtles, ah yes, you're right. Didn't look at what the `.bat` files did. My script uses `vcvarsall.bat` directly – ChrisMM Jan 09 '20 at 19:51
  • A few things to try: You could run one of the Command Prompt links from the start menu. You could check the INCLUDE environment variable in your command prompt after running vcvars64.bat. Check your install of VS to verify that you've installed the proper parts of the C++ tools. – 1201ProgramAlarm Jan 09 '20 at 22:27
  • Any news here? Got the same errors. `vcvarsall.bat` and the Developer Prompts won't detect the windows kits. When trying to add the includes it works until the linker searches for libraries to link, for example `ole32.lib`. The linker can't find them. Seems like the scripts are buggy and/or the installer changed somehow. – Ian Jun 18 '21 at 09:37

2 Answers2

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In my visual studio 2019 installation stddef.h is found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.17763.0\ucrt. vcvars.bat should be adding this path to the INCLUDE environment variable.

Running the following might provide some hints:

set VSCMD_DEBUG=3
vcvars64.bat > out.txt

In my installation searching out.txt for call :GetWin10SdkDir comes to the section where the bat file is searching for a SDK directory. Hopefully there will be some error messages in there somewhere.

For reference these are the additional environment variables set by a working call to vcvars64.bat on my machine:

CommandPromptType=Native
DevEnvDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\
ExtensionSdkDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Kits\10\ExtensionSDKs
Framework40Version=v4.0
FrameworkDir=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\
FrameworkDIR64=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64
FrameworkVersion=v4.0.30319
FrameworkVersion64=v4.0.30319
HTMLHelpDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop
INCLUDE=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\ATLMFC\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\include\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.17763.0\ucrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.17763.0\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.17763.0\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.17763.0\winrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.17763.0\cppwinrt
LIB=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\ATLMFC\lib\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\lib\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\lib\um\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\ucrt\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64;
LIBPATH=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\ATLMFC\lib\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\lib\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\lib\x86\store\references;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\UnionMetadata\10.0.17763.0;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\References\10.0.17763.0;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319;
NETFXSDKDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\
Path=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\bin\HostX64\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\VC\VCPackages;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TestWindow;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\MSBuild\Current\bin\Roslyn;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Team Tools\Performance Tools\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Team Tools\Performance Tools;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\VS15Preview\Common\VSPerfCollectionTools\vs2019\\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\VS15Preview\Common\VSPerfCollectionTools\vs2019\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.8 Tools\x64\;C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.17763.0\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\\MSBuild\Current\Bin;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\Tools\;
Platform=x64
UCRTVersion=10.0.17763.0
UniversalCRTSdkDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\
VCIDEInstallDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\VC\
VCINSTALLDIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\
VCToolsInstallDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.24.28314\
VCToolsRedistDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Redist\MSVC\14.24.28127\
VCToolsVersion=14.24.28314
VisualStudioVersion=16.0
VS160COMNTOOLS=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\Tools\
VSCMD_ARG_app_plat=Desktop
VSCMD_ARG_HOST_ARCH=x64
VSCMD_ARG_TGT_ARCH=x64
VSCMD_VER=16.4.2
VSINSTALLDIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\
WindowsLibPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\UnionMetadata\10.0.17763.0;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\References\10.0.17763.0
WindowsSdkBinPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\
WindowsSdkDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\
WindowsSDKLibVersion=10.0.17763.0\
WindowsSdkVerBinPath=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.17763.0\
WindowsSDKVersion=10.0.17763.0\
WindowsSDK_ExecutablePath_x64=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.8 Tools\x64\
WindowsSDK_ExecutablePath_x86=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.8 Tools\
__DOTNET_ADD_64BIT=1
__DOTNET_PREFERRED_BITNESS=64

If all else fails a re-install of visual studio is likely to fix the issue.

Alan Birtles
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First of all ,you should install either Visual Studio and the optional Desktop development with C++ workload, or the command-line Build Tools for Visual Studio.

Before you can build a C or C++ program on the command line, you must verify that the tools are installed, and that you can access them from the command line. Visual C++ has complex requirements for the command-line environment to find the tools, headers, and libraries it uses. You can't use Visual C++ in a plain command prompt window without doing some preparation. Fortunately, Visual C++ installs shortcuts for you to launch a developer command prompt that has the environment set up for command line builds. Unfortunately, the names of the developer command prompt shortcuts and where they're located are different in almost every version of Visual C++ and on different versions of Windows.

A developer command prompt shortcut automatically sets the correct paths for the compiler and tools, and for any required headers and libraries. You must set these environment values yourself if you use a regular Command Prompt window.

If you get an error such as "'cl' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file," error C1034, or error LNK1104 when you run the cl command, then either you are not using a developer command prompt, or something is wrong with your installation of Visual C++.

I suggest you could try to use Developer Command Prompt for VS directly. Please open the Start menu and choose All apps. Scroll down and open the Visual Studio folder (not the Visual Studio application). Choose Developer Command Prompt for VS to open the command prompt window.

For more details I suggest you could refer to the DOC:Walkthrough: Compiling a Native C++ Program on the Command Line

Jeaninez - MSFT
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    don't think any of this advice is relevant. He states he's getting include errors so `cl` must be running. Running `Developer Command Prompt for VS` is just a shortcut to `vcvarsall.bat`. – Alan Birtles Jan 10 '20 at 10:18