I understand that in linux cmake, make and make install can be combined together to produce a release. For example:
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make
make
In addition to Fraser's answer, to get the first solution to work, one might need to call MSBuild in CMD as Administrator from the original path
cmake ..
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\YEAR\EDITION\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe" INSTALL.vcxproj -p:Configuration=Release
Replace YEAR and EDITION with your corresponding values e.g. 2017 and Community
You might receive the following error, which means your enviroment variable is not set.
error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" was not found. Confirm that the path in the declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
The enviroment variable can be set directly in the system settings or with CMD as Administrator. (Source for reference)
for Visual Studio 2015 and below:
SET VCTargetsPath="C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\vXXX\"
Replace vXXX with your corresponding version e.g. 140
for Visual Studio 2017 and above:
SET VCTargetsPath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\YEAR\EDITION\Common7\IDE\VC\VCTargets\"
Replace YEAR and EDITION with your corresponding values e.g. 2017 and Community
Edit:
I've also noticed that some solutions in Visual Studio 2017 wont show their contents in the Solution Explorer if the enviroment variable is set. Just remove them again if necessary.