Build with sdk 7.1 on VS2015

Question

I have Visual Studio 2015 installed, and I need to compile a specific project with Visual C++ 2010 compiler, which is included in SDK 7.1.

I want to use 2010 compiler within VS2015, without install VS2010. So, I installed it (the SDK), and "Visual Studio 2010 (v100)", "Windows7.1SDK" options appear under "Platform Toolset" property in the project properties. But, when I try to build the project, I get those errors:

With "Windows7.1SDK" -

1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Platforms\x64\Microsoft.Cpp.x64.Targets(146,5): error : Required file "" is missing.

and with "Visual Studio 2010 (v100)" -

1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(297,5): warning MSB8003: Could not find WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry.  TargetFrameworkVersion or PlatformToolset may be set to an invalid version number.
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Platforms\x64\Microsoft.Cpp.x64.Targets(146,5): error : Required file "" is missing.

Can't figure out what the problem is..

Answer 1

I had the same issue for 2 weeks and just found a workaround that might help :

Without modifying anything to my VS2010 projects (not changing the toolset in the vcxproj), I use the command line build tools MSBuild tools with the toolset specified as a switch as found here Building C++ project on a PC with Windows SDK 7.1 but without VS2010

msbuild /p:PateformToolset=Windows7.1SDK project.vcxproj

(In my case, the corresponding msbuild is in the folder C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319)

If Msbuild throws an error telling its missing mspdb100.dll, you may need to add %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ to your %PATH% env var.

Finally, you may have some files missing like ammintrin.h (especially if like me you try to compile old InDesign plugins) even after installing the visual c++ updates. The only (and ugly) workaround I found in my case that does not involve installing VS2010 (the common answer of MS) is to copy the missing includes from the %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include folder to the %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include one.

Voila ! Hope this helps