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I have a simple c++ console application in VS2019 that was working and running when the latest Windows Update decided to (helpfully?) restart the machine. Nothing in the application or its project settings changed and nothing else was installed or modified in any way (by me). On re-opening VS2019 my project fails to build with the following error

Severity    Code    Description Project File    Line    Suppression State
Error   MSB8020 The build tools for v142 (Platform Toolset = 'v142') cannot be found. To build using the v142 build tools, please install v142 build tools.  Alternatively, you may upgrade to the current Visual Studio tools by selecting the Project menu or right-click the solution, and then selecting "Retarget solution".   ConsoleApplication1 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\VC\VCTargets\Microsoft.Cpp.Platform.targets   57

I have tried selecting all of the available SDK options from the retarget solution menu (there are four) and each time doing a clean and rebuild but but each time still fails.

enter image description here

So it seems like Windows has gone and replaced the SDK underneath? Do I need to install something new to get this working? I know I could probably get away with just creating a new project (and probably will this time), but I wouldn't want to do that with every forced update.

In case any of this helps, the application VC++ Directories setting does have

$(VC_IncludePath)
$(WindowsSDK_IncludePath)

Which before retargeting evaluated to

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.13.26128\include
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.13.26128\atlmfc\include
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0\ucrt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.6.1\Include\um

and after retargeting evaluated to (for example)

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.13.26128\include
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.13.26128\atlmfc\include
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.18362.0\ucrt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.18362.0\um
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.18362.0\shared
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.18362.0\winrt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.18362.0\cppwinrt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.6.1\Include\um
Mark
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1 Answers1

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I found the Project Properties / General / Platform option and it was set to V142 (not installed). I replaced this selection with V141 (visual studio 2017) and all seems right again. I am not sure if that was the best thing to do, but the project does build again as expected. If someone can post a more enlightened answer (and explanation for why this may have happened) I will accept that. In case someone just had their project break with the last update, this did it for me.

The idea for this did come from the solution to this, although I didn't need to do any notepad hackery.

Mark
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