February 2016 | C++ Team Blog

Developing C++ cross-platform projects with CMake?

Eric BattalioFebruary 29, 2016Feb 29, 201602/29/16

Do you develop cross-platform C++ applications or libraries? In this short survey, the Microsoft Visual Studio team would like to learn more about your current edit-build-debug experience. This survey will help us understand your needs and preferences when doing C++ development using CMake (or any other cross-platform tools). Your feedback is ...

Stuck on an older toolset version? Move to Visual Studio 2017 without upgrading your toolset

Marian LuparuFebruary 24, 2016Feb 24, 201602/24/16

⏱ Updated on March 11, 2019 with the latest functionality in Visual Studio 2017 Are you currently developing your C++ projects in an older version of Visual Studio? If your reasons for avoiding the all-new features in VS 2017 are covered next, then read on: this post may have good news for you. Help! I am stuck! There are many reasons why...

New Options for Managing Character Sets in the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler

Jim SpringfieldFebruary 22, 2016Feb 22, 201602/22/16

The Microsoft C/C++ compiler has evolved along with DOS, 16-bit Windows, and 32/64-bit Windows. Its support for different characters sets, code pages, and Unicode has also changed during this time. This post will explain how our compiler has worked in the past and also cover some new switches provided by the C/C++ compiler in Visual ...

Try out the latest C++ compiler toolset without waiting for the next update of Visual Studio

Andrew PardoeFebruary 16, 2016Feb 16, 201602/16/16

Updated 22 Apr 2016: The NuGet package is now being uploaded daily. The payload doesn't change every day but you should see new bug fixes and/or feature updates every five days or so. See the blog post announcement here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/04/26/stay-up-to-date-with-the-visual-c-tools-on-nuget. Last November we ...

Do You Develop Games?

Eric BattalioFebruary 12, 2016Feb 12, 201602/12/16

Or have you worked on a game recently? If so, please share some details about your experience. The Microsoft Visual Studio team would like to learn more about your current game development experience. The survey should take less than ~10 minutes. Thank you...

Natvis for C++/CLI Available in VS2015

Adam Welch (MSFT)February 12, 2016Feb 12, 201602/12/16

This post details how to enable the feature in VS2015 Update 2. The recommended way of getting this feature is now to install VS2015 Update 3 which supports it by default. In Visual Studio 2012 the native debugger significantly improved with the addition of native visualizers (natvis) as part of a major debug engine overhaul. Adding C++/...

Compiler improvements in VS 2015 Update 2

Andrew PardoeFebruary 11, 2016Feb 11, 201602/11/16

The C++ compiler team is excited for you to try out the compiler in Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 CTP 1. Since Update 1 we’ve made progress on being Standards-conformant for lot of C++11 and C++14 features. One particularly big milestone is that our standard library in Update 2 supports every C++ Standard Library feature that’s been voted ...

What's inside a PDB File?

Jim HoggFebruary 8, 2016Feb 8, 201602/8/16

Background We have all used the Visual Studio Debugger to step through code, in the hunt for bugs. For C or C++ code, that Debugger relies upon a file, with the extension ".pdb", called the "Program DataBase", or simply "the PDB". The PDB is written by the Linker when you build your program; it contains line-number and symbols ...

What’s inside a PDB File?

Jim HoggFebruary 8, 2016Feb 8, 201602/8/16

Your Version Control Experiences

Eric BattalioFebruary 1, 2016Feb 1, 201602/1/16

The Visual C++ Team team would like to learn more about your source code management experiences across development tools, languages (especially C/C++), target platforms and project types. Please take a few minutes (~10) to fill out our brief survey http://www.instant.ly/s/wJqxc.The last question is an opt-in to share more details of your ...

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