Does anyone actually use the WinSDK build environment?

Is this part of the Windows SDK obsolete? We put a lot of energy into shipping a customer build environment with the latest VC ++ compilers and tools, and it’s all set up to build .NET apps out of the gate, but I rarely get feedback or questions about it. It makes me wonder if anyone is using it. I think most users prefer the Visual Studio IDE. Now that the Visual Studio (even Express!) includes the Windows SDK components you need to create Win32 applications – headers, libraries and tools, are parts of the Windows SDK becoming obsolete?

What can you do with the Windows SDK build environment that you can’t do with Visual Studio Express? Well… if you’re developing on X64 you won’t get a 64-bit compiler in the Express versions. And you can’t get the native IA64 compiler anywhere except the SDK. Even the high-end versions of VS don’t ship that.

I assume that most developers who use the SDK build environment use it as a template to create their own build environment that they can lock down and keep stable. But I don’t really know. Have you ever used it? What for?

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
  PingBack from http://blog.a-foton.ru/2008/07/does-anyone-actually-use-the-winsdk-build-environment/

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
  I didn't even realize that such a thing existed! But now that I know, and knowing that I need it to build for x64... I suddenly feel like I really need it. Or at least have a way to build 64-bit with VS Express. As of the moment it doesn't really matter since most of our machines are still 32-bit. grumble game console hardware debugger drivers... but in the near future when everything turns 64-bit. It's going to be very necessary if Microsoft doesn't bundle the 64-bit compiler with VS Express.

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
  Thanks for the input, Lysine.  It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how to use the SDK 64-bit compilers with Visual Studio Express.  I’m thinking that it would be a good use of time to figure this out and document it.  The VC ++ compilers that are shipped in the SDK are the same as those shipped in Visual Studio. In fact, they’re actually shared.  If VS is installed before the SDK, the SDK build environment does not install compilers and uses the VS-installed compilers.  If the SDK is installed first, VS shares those that the SDK installs.   The SDK also installs cross-compilers on every computer, so that you can create an X64 or IA64 application on an X86 machine.  You can learn more in my post Pros and Cons of shared compilers in WinSDK and VS2008 http://blogs.msdn.com/karinm/archive/2008/04/19/pros-and-cons-of-shared-compilers-in-win-sdk-and-vs2008.aspx --Karin