C++ Team Blog

The latest in C++, Visual Studio, VS Code, and vcpkg from the MSFT C++ team

Using MinGW and Cygwin with Visual C++ and Open Folder

Building cross-platform C and C++ code is easier than ever with Visual Studio 15.3 Preview 4.  The latest preview improves support for alternative compilers and build environments such as MinGW and Cygwin.  MinGW (Minimalist GNU for Windows), in case you are not familiar with it, is a compiler in the GCC family designed to run natively on ...

CMake support in Visual Studio – what’s new in 2017 15.3 Preview

We are excited to announce the first preview release of Visual Studio 2017 15.3 update in conjunction with our Build 2017 conference!  This preview includes two new features of interest to developers utilizing CMake.  Support for the CMake Ninja generator and CMake CTest integration in the IDE. Please download the preview and try out the ...

CMake support in Visual Studio – what’s new in 2017 15.2 update

Today’s preview release of Visual Studio 2017 15.2 update comes with several improvements and new features in CMake Tools for Visual Studio – recently updated to cover 15.2.  We have upgraded the included version of CMake to 3.7.2 and enhanced the discoverability of features in the CMake menu.  This update also includes bugfixes for ...

Bring your C++ code to Visual Studio

C++ has been around for a long time and throughout its history many tools have been built to make life easier for C++ developers. This has led to a diverse C++ ecosystem in terms of the editing tools, build systems, coding conventions, and C++ libraries that we use in our day-to-day work. As a C++ developer, you are probably accustomed to ...

CMake support in Visual Studio 2017 – what’s new in the RC.2 update

In case you missed the latest Visual Studio news, there is a new update for Visual Studio 2017 RC available. You can either upgrade your existing installation or, if you’re starting fresh, install it from the Visual Studio 2017 RC download page. This release comes with several enhancements in Visual Studio’s CMake experience that further ...

Open any folder with C++ sources in Visual Studio 2017 RC

With the Visual Studio 2017 RC release, we're continuing to improve the "Open Folder" capabilities for C++ source code. In this release, we're adding support for building as well as easier configuration for the debugger and the C++ language services. If you are just getting started with "Open Folder" or want to read about these capabilities ...

CMake support in Visual Studio – the Visual Studio 2017 RC update

Visual Studio 2017 RC is an important release when it comes to its support for CMake. The "Tools for CMake" VS component is now ready for public preview and we’d like to invite all of you to bring your CMake projects into VS and give us feedback on your experience. For an overview of the general Visual Studio CMake experience, head over to ...

CMake support in Visual Studio

⏱ Updated on October 5, 2017 with the latest functionality included with Visual Studio 2017 15.4 Visual Studio 2017 introduces built-in support for handling CMake projects. This makes it a lot simpler to develop C++ projects built with CMake without the need to generate VS projects and solutions from the command line. This post gives ...

C++ IntelliSense Improvements – Predictive IntelliSense & Filtering

IntelliSense is one of the most commonly used features in Visual Studio. With it, developers can write code more efficiently and learn more about their codebase at the same time. In a sense, IntelliSense is both a guide and a productivity feature. We understand the importance of having a powerful IntelliSense system which displays highly ...

Bring your C++ codebase to Visual Studio with “Open Folder”

⏱ Updated on March 06, 2017 with the latest functionality in Visual Studio 2017 RTW Welcome to Visual Studio 2017! Starting with this release, Visual Studio supports opening folders containing source code without the need to create any solutions or projects. This makes it a lot simpler to get started with Visual Studio, even if your ...