This answer focuses mostly on VS2013. Microsoft's documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229859%28v=vs.110%29.aspx states:
Starting with Visual Studio 2010, you may see multiple command prompts, depending on the version of Visual Studio and any additional SDKs you've installed. For example, 64-bit versions of Visual Studio provide both 32-bit and 64-bit command prompts. (The 32-bit and 64-bit versions of most tools are identical; however, a few tools make changes specific to 32-bit and 64-bit environments.)
It adds, rather unhelpfully:
Check the documentation for the individual tools to determine which version of the command prompt you should use.
The page http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj153218.aspx lists five such command prompts:
- Developer Command Prompt for VS2013
- VS2013 ARM Cross Tools Command Prompt
- VS2013 x64 Cross Tools Command Prompt
- VS2013 x64 Native Tools Command Prompt
- VS2013 x86 Native Tools Command Prompt
On my machine, only the 1st, 3rd, and 5th of these are present, and they launch, respectively:
%comspec% /k ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat""
%comspec% /k ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86_amd64
%comspec% /k ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86
To check the environment variables, running the set
command for first and "x86 Native" shells gives identical results on my machine. And mmohamad's answer tp Difference between VsDevCmd.bat & vcvarsall.bat in VS2012 agrees with this.
But "x64 Cross" is different: the difference is (excluding Path
and LIBPATH
for brevity):
+ CommandPromptType=Cross
+ FrameworkDIR64=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64
+ FrameworkVersion64=v4.0.30319
+ Platform=x64
- LIB=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\lib\winv6.3\um\x86;
+ LIB=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\LIB\amd64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\lib\winv6.3\um\x64;